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At Lloyd Financial Group, we’re constantly striving to give you more insight, more clarity, and more confidence when it comes to your money. Our Chief Investment Officer, Colin Symons, now delivers his own daily newsletter, offering deep analysis and a detailed outlook on the ever-changing investment world called Symons Says. Check it out and subscribe if you want a very detailed, daily analysis of the investment world. Colin has amazing content.

Meanwhile, the LFG Daily will continue to bring you quick, actionable summaries — blending market updates with financial planning and tax strategies to help you make smarter decisions every day. Together, they’re the perfect one-two punch: Colin brings the deep dive into Investments, we bring the daily edge.

Luke Lloyd, CEO Lloyd Financial Group

Why Optimists Make Money

If you study the people who build wealth over long periods of time, you’ll notice something they almost always share: optimism. Not blind optimism. Not reckless optimism. But a steady belief that tomorrow will likely be better than today—and that belief changes how they behave with money.

Optimists tend to make money because they participate. Pessimists sit on the sidelines.

Throughout history, the financial markets have climbed a wall of worry. Wars, recessions, political turmoil, inflation scares, and financial crises have been constants. Yet despite all of it, the American economy and markets have continued to grow over the long run. Investors who believed in that long-term trajectory and stayed invested were rewarded. Those who constantly expected collapse often missed the opportunity.

Optimism fuels action. When someone believes the future holds opportunity, they are more likely to invest, start businesses, take calculated risks, and stick with long-term plans. That behavior compounds. Pessimism, on the other hand, often leads to paralysis. Money sits in cash, opportunities are passed up, and fear replaces strategy.

The power of optimism shows up clearly in investing behavior. Markets regularly experience downturns—sometimes dramatic ones. The pessimistic investor interprets every decline as confirmation that the system is broken. They sell, move to cash, and wait for the “perfect” time to get back in. Unfortunately, that perfect moment rarely comes.

The optimistic investor sees volatility differently. They recognize downturns as part of the process and often as opportunities. They rebalance portfolios, add to positions when prices fall, and remain focused on the long-term trajectory rather than short-term noise.

This mindset also extends beyond the stock market. Optimists are more likely to invest in themselves. They pursue education, build businesses, network, and explore new ideas.

Those efforts create income growth, career mobility, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Over time, those advantages compound financially.

There is also a psychological benefit. Financial planning is a long game. Building wealth can take decades, and the journey inevitably includes uncertainty. Optimism helps people stay disciplined during those periods. Instead of reacting emotionally to every headline, they stay focused on the bigger picture.

None of this means ignoring risks. In fact, the best investors are often realistic optimists. They acknowledge that markets will experience setbacks, that mistakes will happen, and that not every investment will work out. But they also recognize that progress, innovation, and human ingenuity tend to move economies forward over time.

Consider how many times in recent decades people were convinced the financial system was permanently broken. The dot-com crash, the financial crisis of 2008, the pandemic shutdowns—each moment felt catastrophic at the time. Yet markets recovered and eventually reached new highs because businesses adapted, technology advanced, and economic activity continued.

Optimists understand this pattern. They don’t assume the road will be smooth, but they believe the direction is forward.

In financial planning, optimism is not just an attitude—it’s a strategy. It encourages disciplined investing, long-term thinking, and participation in the very systems that create wealth.

The pessimists may sound smarter in the moment. They can always point to the latest risk, crisis, or reason the system might fail.

But over the long run, it’s usually the optimists who end up owning the assets. And in markets, ownership is what ultimately creates wealth.

Colin Symons, CIO Lloyd Financial Group

Oil is top of mind, as it’s ranged from about $55 to $120 over the last few months as recession odds and Iran fears move pricing around. As investors, how should we think about this? First, I’m not any great specialist in oil. I’ve been a successful generalist over the decades (and made quite a bit of money on oil stocks around 2006,) and this is just a general idea of how to think about oil with your portfolio.

Overnight excitement aside, I continue to think oil is a short-term issue. Further, the most likely outcome, to my mind, is that oil has already peaked for the year. Yes, the war is still going on, and Iran is still trying to scare ships out of the Straits of Hormuz. They’ve also hit tankers and ports. I’d bet that is largely in the past, though.

Iran seems to be running out of weaponry or at least the ability to launch them, as attacks have dropped sharply, as seen below. They have no navy to stop ships from going through the Strait, the bigger problem is insurance companies being unwilling to insure the ships. That can be dealt with, and the US and France, at the least, have talked about escorting ships for a bit.

Some nations have also been talking of releasing strategic reserves. That should cover temporary oil disruptions for months or more, even with the US’s already depleted status. That gives the US plenty of time to secure the Straits. The EU stated they weren’t ready to do this yet, but it’s certainly an option.

Yesterday, I showed a chart of oil futures showing how there’s an enormous panic premium in near-term prices. That panic is very likely to go away, as there’s increasingly less that Iran can do to affect the price of oil over time. Obviously, the world doesn’t come with guarantees, but we are likely headed towards more peaceful times as Iran’s ability to attack is reduced. Panic will be replaced by something closer to peace, which means lower prices.

Obviously, people can and will disagree with this. I concur that damage has been done and will take time to be repaired. However, I think the action we’ve seen in the oil market is very similar to what we saw in the silver market, and I expect a similar basic conclusion. The market aggressively went into both commodities, very aggressively calling for higher prices.

Silver had all the marks of a broken carry trade, where aggressive buying created a runaway market that was begging to correct. Similarly, with oil, you saw a fast rally getting it very overbought and now we’ve quickly declined over 20% from the top. Honestly, I think the oil setup is much worse, longer term, as silver demand is more likely to be able to tolerate higher prices, as supply has been in deficit for six straight years, according to the Silver Institute.

Oil, on the other hand, more likely has a surplus, particularly once the Strait of Hormuz calms down. The IEA, for instance, believes supply growth is outstripping demand at a pace of roughly 2MM/bpd (barrels per day,) though admittedly their variance is pretty high. It’s easy to imagine the natural trend is for silver to head up and oil to head down.

Ultimately, we’ve seen this movie before, and a Gulf war tends to be a buying event sooner rather than later. Anything can happen, of course, but it seems like Iran has little ability to succeed at keeping oil up over time. The Strait of Hormuz would have to remain closed for some time to create the chaos needed to get these elevated levels people are talking about. Basically, usually the rubber band of market stress snaps back, creating a rally, but it would be irresponsible of me to deny that occasionally the rubber brand breaks, creating rapid downside. Let’s call that a 15% chance of trouble. Versus the fear, that seems like pretty good risk/reward to me.

NY Inflation Expectations saw consumers drop inflation expectations, with 1Y expectations from 3.1% to 3%, and 3-5Y inflation staying at 3%.

NFIB Small Business Optimism was 98.8 vs. exp. 99.7with higher sales and less uncertainty, but a drop in optimism.

Oil had a $35 dollar swing in price, yesterday, ending at $88. That’s the second biggest move, ever, after Trump said the US was very far ahead of his initial Iran timeframe of 4-5 weeks. As far as the market’s concerned, “That’s all, folks!” as the week’s opening surge in oil vanishes.

Yesterday, CNN’s Fear & Greed index hit Extreme Fear for the first time since early December. That seems unlikely to remain.

The volatility index, VIX, is down from 32 to 24.

Taiwan Semi (TSM) reported Jan-Feb revenue growth of 30% on strong AI demand.

JPM says trend sellers are likely to continue selling this stock market.

ADP Employment and Existing Home Sales, today.

What does it all mean? Nervous markets got soothing words, yesterday, but hedging remains.

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This content is intended to provide general information about Lloyd Financial. It is not intended to offer or deliver investment advice in any way. Information regarding investment services are provided solely to gain an understanding of our investment philosophy, our strategies and to be able to contact us for further information.

All information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy is not guaranteed. There is no representation or warranty as to the current accuracy, reliability or completeness of, nor liability for, decisions based on such information and it should not be relied on as such.

The views expressed in this commentary are subject to change based on market and other conditions. These documents may contain certain statements that may be deemed forward‐looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected. Any projections, market outlooks, or estimates are based upon certain assumptions and should not be construed as indicative of actual events that will occur.

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk. Therefore, it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy will be profitable