How Trump’s Iran Pause Fits Into His Market-Timed Playbook

On Monday, March 23, President Trump announced a 5-Day pause on strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure. The decision added $1.7 trillion to US stocks, crashed oil prices by 15%, and sent Bitcoin above $70,000. That pause is now extended until April 6. 

But Tehran called these claims ‘fake news’, and Israel already violated Trump’s pause. Almost all of these financial gains vanished within a week. So, did Donald Trump actually have productive talks with Iran, or was it just a ploy to benefit financial markets and have big players cash out?

How Trump’s Pause Lines Up With Market Hours

The sequence starts Saturday, March 22. Trump posted a 48-hour ultimatum on Truth Social demanding Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants.

That deadline was set to expire Monday evening, with traditional markets fully open and exposed.

Instead of following through, Trump posted at 7 a.m. ET Monday, claiming “very good and productive conversations” with Tehran. He announced a 5-day postponement of all energy infrastructure strikes.

The 5-day window expired Saturday, March 28. Not a random day.

• Equity markets are closed
• Futures liquidity is thin
• Institutional desks are offline.

If escalation resumes, it lands in the same low-liquidity window that has preceded every major Trump-era market shock since mid-2025.

Timeline graphic showing the Saturday ultimatum, Monday pause, and Saturday expiry, aligned with NYSE/CME trading hours. Source: BeInCrypto

Someone Traded Before the Post

Markets moved before the announcement went live. Between 6:49 and 6:50 a.m. ET, roughly 6,200 Brent and WTI futures contracts changed hands with a notional value of $580 million.

The average for that same minute over the prior five trading days was approximately 700 contracts, according to Bloomberg data reported by the Financial Times.

At the same time, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures were purchased. That single order pushed the index 0.3% higher instantly. Fourteen minutes later, Trump’s post dropped. By 7:10 a.m. ET, the S&P 500 had gained roughly $2 trillion in value.

U.S. and UK regulators are reportedly reviewing the data. No charges have been filed.

“The massive spike in volume of trades right before that post is certainly enough to raise eyebrows, and I think to launch an investigation into what was behind that,” wrote CBS News, citing Stephen Piepgrass, a partner who specializes in futures trading at the law firm Troutman Pepper Locke.

Iran Says It Never Happened

Tehran’s response left no ambiguity. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf called it “fake news” intended to manipulate financial and oil markets.

The Foreign Ministry described it as psychological warfare aimed at lowering energy prices and buying time for more strikes. Officials acknowledged receiving messages through intermediaries but insisted no direct negotiations occurred.

The denial triggered an immediate reversal. Oil rebounded. Stocks gave back roughly half their gains. BTC pulled back after briefly reclaiming $70,000, leaving $265 million in crypto shorts liquidated within 15 minutes.

BTC, Gold, Oil, and SPX Performance since Monday. Source: TradingView

This Has Happened 11 Times Since November 2024

Monday was not the first time. BeInCrypto has tracked 11 market-moving Trump announcements since November 2024, each following what traders now call the TACO pattern, a cycle of action, crash, reversal, and recovery.

• Liberation Day tariffs were announced on April 2, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. ET, after markets closed. Trump posted “BE COOL! THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!” the next morning, minutes after opening. A 90-day pause followed, producing a 9.5% rally in the S&P 500.

• On October 10, 2025, a 100% tariff threat on China dropped on a Friday, 20 minutes after close. BTC fell 18.4%. Crypto liquidations hit $19.1 billion in 24 hours.

Table showing all 11 Trump market events with dates, BTC before/after, percentage moves, liquidations, and TACO outcomes. Source: BeInCrypto

Six confirmed Friday night strikes between June 2025 and February 2026 followed the same logic. BeInCrypto identified this as a repeatable 60-hour sequence across those events.

The Iran pause is the evolution. Instead of a Friday shock and a Monday walk-back, Monday itself became the vehicle. Ultimatum on Saturday. Relief on Monday. Next escalation window on Saturday again.

What the Experts See

Oxford-based political scientist Richard Heydarian warned on the BeInCrypto podcast that the economic damage from the conflict could run into trillions while Trump’s tactical moves remain impossible to anticipate.

“Trump is strategically predictable, but tactically impossible to predict. We know what his endgame is. American hegemony, beyond question. But how to achieve that in such a complex world? No one knows,” Richard Heydarian told BeInCrypto.

Stanford economist Mordecai Kurz, also speaking on the BeInCrypto podcast, placed the dynamics within a structural problem of concentrated private power that leaves ordinary people exposed.

“There are so many concentrations of private power in America that this cannot continue… young people have a chance only if technology is made to serve people and policy serves people,” Kurz explained.

The 5-day clock expires Saturday. If the pattern holds, the next headline lands when markets are closed, and liquidity is at its weakest.

Across 11 documented events and 16 months, the pattern has not broken once.