Remember when everyone was losing their minds about the Iran war? Yeah, Ryan Detrick wasn’t one of them.
While Wall Street was collectively having a meltdown, Carson Group’s chief market strategist was sitting pretty with a bullish outlook that actually held up. And this week, as stocks hit fresh all-time highs following Iran’s announcement that the Strait of Hormuz is open for business again, it turns out he was onto something.
Here’s the thing about markets that most people miss: they’re weirdly good at adapting. “It’s not about good or bad, it’s about better or worse,” Detrick told Business Insider. Sounds simple, right? But it’s actually the secret sauce to not panicking every time geopolitical chaos erupts.
The proof is in the pudding. Even at the worst point in March, the S&P 500 was only down about 8% from pre-war levels. For a full-blown Middle East conflict that had everyone convinced the world was ending, that’s… honestly not that bad. The market was basically saying, “Yeah, this sucks, but it’s probably not going to completely spiral into oblivion.” And guess what? It didn’t.
While other strategists were waving red flags and issuing bearish warnings, Carson Group never wavered. They kept their overweight rating on equities the whole time. That’s not luck—that’s having a framework that actually works.
So what’s the framework? Detrick’s betting on what he calls the “one-two punch”: de-escalation (which we just got with the Strait of Hormuz reopening) plus strong earnings season. And earnings season is about to kick off in earnest.
Here’s why this matters: companies have been navigating this chaos too. If they can deliver solid results despite all the volatility and uncertainty, that’s a green light for the bull market to keep running. And Detrick thinks they will. “We do think that this bull market is not over yet, and we think it’s going to be justified again this earnings season,” he said. “It’s a global bull market, and I don’t want to fight that.”
The takeaway? When everyone’s panicking, sometimes the smartest move is to remember that markets have survived worse. They adapt, they adjust, and they keep moving forward. The bears fumbled the ball, as Detrick put it. Now the bulls are back in control, and if earnings come through, this rally could have real legs.
So while the headlines were screaming doomsday scenarios, the real story was simpler: stay calm, stick to your thesis, and remember that “better or worse” beats “good or bad” every single time.
