#Gate广场四月发帖挑战 What if Trump suddenly raids during the market closure! How should the first trade of the open be handled?

01

To understand this kind of change, we need to go back to a fundamental question: how does the market normally digest information?

Imagine a normal trading day, and suddenly a piece of news breaks. For example, a national leader makes a strongly worded statement, or economic data significantly underperforms expectations. The market will definitely fluctuate, but the way it fluctuates is quite interesting.

The first responders start selling, causing prices to dip. Then, another group thinks the decline is overdone and tentatively buys, stabilizing the price. Next, a third group judges "it hasn't fallen through" and continues to sell, pushing the price down further. Meanwhile, in the options market, some are buying protective puts, and in the futures market, some are shorting for hedging. All these actions happen simultaneously, competing with each other, and prices find a new equilibrium step by step in this tug-of-war.

We can imagine this process as a pot of boiling water slowly cooling down. This process is smooth and observable; we see the numbers on the thermometer gradually decrease, and we can decide at any moment whether to reach out and touch or wait a little longer. This is how risk is distributed, digested, and absorbed through continuous trading.

But holidays split this process into two parts.

The market closes, but the world doesn’t pause. The president still makes statements, missiles are still flying overhead, economic data is still released on schedule. The only thing pressed into pause is our trading rights. Want to sell? Can't find buyers. Want to buy? Can't get in. Want to adjust positions? Sorry, the system doesn't accept it.

The water’s temperature is still changing dramatically, but we are tied up, unable to act, only standing by anxiously. This helplessness creates a sense of powerlessness that is unfriendly to everyone.

If you hold positions, the biggest fear is gap openings. At last Friday’s close, you see this price; come Monday’s open, it might have shifted by an entirely different magnitude. What will happen in between? No idea. What might you miss? Also unknown. The only thing you can do is repeatedly refresh news, recalculate, and ask yourself, "If it gaps 10%, can I handle it?" This anxiety can erode the entire holiday.

What if you are completely flat? It sounds safer—no positions, no gap risk. But when the market finally reopens, prices may have already moved far away. At that point, what you see isn’t opportunity but chasing the trend. The assets you want to buy have already risen sharply, and those you want to sell have already fallen significantly. Entry costs spike, and certainty drops sharply.

There’s also a more subtle harm: holidays amplify emotional fermentation.

On normal trading days, panic or greed is constantly corrected through buying and selling. When prices fall, some see it as cheap and buy, stopping the decline. This "someone taking the other side" fact itself can cool the market. But during holidays, this mechanism is absent. When bad news comes out, no one can do anything; everyone can only ruminate and speculate repeatedly. Panic spreads, anxiety inflates, and when the market reopens, the accumulated emotions from two or three days are released in a surge. The opening candle is often not a rational price but a product of emotional outbursts.

Previously, the market feared bad news itself; now, it fears bad news landing during market closures. Bad news can be digested, but if it hits when the market is closed and everyone is forced to wait without digesting it, that’s truly dangerous.

02

Zooming in on this holiday, we can see how this mechanism operates in real cases.

On April 3rd, Friday, the Chinese market closed for the Qingming holiday. On the same day, the US and Europe markets were closed for Good Friday. Major global stock markets almost simultaneously shut their doors, leaving an empty stage.

Though the stage is empty, the show continues.

Looking back three days: February 21st, Trump publicly stated that the war with Iran might end in two to three weeks. Once the news broke, global stock markets rose on April 1st, and oil prices clearly retreated. The market began trading the expectation of "conflict cooling down," and risk appetite visibly increased.

Just one day later, on April 2nd, he changed tone, saying he would launch "extremely fierce" strikes against Iran in the coming weeks. Oil prices soared that day, stocks weakened, and sentiment shifted from optimism back to panic.

By April 3rd, the last day of the global markets’ collective holiday, he bombed Iran’s iconic bridge and further signaled: next targets are power plants.

Connecting these three days: within forty-eight hours, the market’s pricing basis shifted from "peace is imminent" to "continue fighting," then to "possibly escalate." Each switch was accompanied by sharp price swings. And all these changes happened just before the global markets collectively closed. Investors hadn’t fully digested the third day’s information before the doors closed.

After entering the holiday, two opposite scenarios hang over the market:

One is escalation continuing. This isn’t just imagination. Trump has explicitly threatened to attack infrastructure, saying, "We’re nowhere near destroying the rest of Iran." If further military strikes occur during the holiday, fears over oil supply will reignite, oil prices will rise further, and when markets reopen, the likely initial reaction will be inflation concerns and reduced room for central bank rate cuts. Not good news for markets.

The other possibility is a sudden, unexpected easing signal—such as announcing progress in negotiations, a pause in military actions, or releasing some kind of "holiday gift" statement. This scenario is also quite possible. Anti-war voices in the US are growing louder, most people want the war to end quickly, and Trump has recently mentioned negotiations repeatedly. If any peace news leaks out over the weekend, oil prices could fall rapidly, safe-haven premiums accumulated earlier could start to unwind, and risk assets might see a recovery.

03

Many might think: just wait and see what happens, then decide what to do.

But that’s precisely the problem. The main point of this article is to clarify: the biggest disturbance caused by this uncertainty isn’t just "not knowing if the war will escalate," but that it turns every holiday into a period that cannot be verified or adjusted—an uncertain window.

We don’t know whether we are holding positions suitable for escalation or for a sudden ceasefire. When the market reopens, the answer will be forced to be revealed all at once, and the opportunity for preemptive adjustment will be lost.

This not only changes the market’s directional judgment but also its perception of "time." Previously, trading was mainly about avoiding wrong direction. Now, there’s an added layer: whether bad news will land during market closure. Holidays should be a pause button, but now they feel more like a tense spring, waiting to snap back, with the magnitude of the snap uncertain but sure to be powerful.

Since holidays are no longer safe, before opening the market software after the break, the most important thing isn’t chasing headlines to guess who wins or loses, but understanding: what sequence and logic will the market use to reprice?

First, give yourself a calm reminder: not every holiday will bring big events, and even if big events happen, they don’t necessarily cause big moves.

A clear example from early January this year: Maduro was detained in Venezuela over the weekend. Intuitively, "bad news over the weekend equals a Monday plunge," so global stocks should fall. But the opposite happened. On the first full trading day afterward, global markets rose, and the Dow even hit a new high. Why? Because the market quickly judged it as a localized geopolitical event. It didn’t push oil prices higher, didn’t change inflation expectations, and didn’t affect the Fed’s rate path. The headlines were sensational, but they didn’t trigger the real transmission chain that drives market direction.

What is this transmission chain? Simplified: oil prices determine inflation expectations, inflation expectations determine the interest rate path, and the interest rate path determines market valuation.

If a geopolitical event doesn’t cause sustained oil price increases, it’s hard to transmit to inflation and interest rates. The market’s reaction is often just a brief shock, a pulse that recovers in a few days. But if oil prices are pushed up and stay high for a long time, inflation pressure will genuinely increase, central banks’ room to cut rates will shrink, and the market’s stress won’t be digestible in a few days.

04

Therefore, the first thing to do after the holiday isn’t to guess the direction but to judge: did what happened during the holiday affect this transmission chain? Three observation lines can help:

The first is oil prices.

Oil prices are the topmost valve of the entire transmission chain. If Brent crude remains high after the holiday and refuses to come down, pay special attention to whether the nearby futures contract (the one expiring in the current month) is trading at a significant premium over longer-dated contracts. This is called "contango." It reflects the market’s concern about immediate supply disruptions. If the contango is obvious, it indicates real supply shocks rather than just psychological panic. The market will likely follow the logic: high oil leads to higher prices, which leads to inflation, which then hampers rate cuts—making the market’s outlook less relaxed.

Conversely, if oil prices fall sharply, it suggests the market believes the conflict is manageable or supply can recover. Risk aversion will ease, and risk assets are more likely to recover.

The second is the "overlay effect" of non-farm payrolls and geopolitical news.

US February non-farm payroll data will be released on April 3rd evening, but by then, major global markets are already on holiday. The market’s reaction to this data will only be fully reflected when CME futures open on Monday.

This creates an interesting situation: on Tuesday morning, the market must digest two completely different pieces of information simultaneously—geopolitical news accumulated during the holiday and a jobs report that was released three days ago but not yet fully traded.

These two can interfere with each other. If employment data is strong but geopolitical tensions escalate, the market may slip into an awkward pricing state: the economy isn’t weakening, but inflation threats are higher, making rate cuts less likely. If data is weak but geopolitical signals ease, then the reaction of interest rates and the dollar will be crucial, and the intersection may produce some unconventional moves.

The third is the Strait of Hormuz.

We’ve emphasized this many times, but it bears repeating because it’s a very useful gauge. About one-fifth of global oil trade passes through this strait. If tensions remain high, regardless of what is said during the holiday, the market will treat it as a structural supply risk, making oil prices hard to fall significantly.

But if there are signs of shipping recovery or normalization, many of the threatening scenarios may remain just talk, with no real supply shock happening.

This line helps us distinguish between "oil supply is genuinely affected" and "everyone is just scared."

Finally, a very practical detail: the order in which markets reopen.

This time, the reopening of all global markets will take about five days across nine phases. On Monday morning, CME futures and the Tokyo market will lead. Monday evening, US stocks follow. Tuesday, A-shares and Europe return. Wednesday, Hong Kong stocks are last.

Don’t treat any single market’s first reaction as the final answer. Experience shows that early markets tend to trade based on instinctive panic or relief, heavily emotional. Later markets will start recalculating deeper factors like oil prices, interest rates, and policy expectations, then incorporate them into prices. Each market’s logic can differ. Chasing the first reaction is often not the wisest choice.

05

At this point, a deeper question is worth pondering: why has the topic of holiday risk become so important now?

The answer lies in the particularity of this era.

You may have noticed that things are really different now than before. Previously, diplomatic statements followed procedures, military actions required prior deployment, and news took hours or days to spread. By the time markets opened, the situation was often already clear.

Now? A single tweet can go viral worldwide in minutes. In the morning, markets might be trading "a ceasefire," and by afternoon, they could switch to "continue fighting." This high-frequency switching is already exhausting in normal times; during holidays, it’s even more deadly—because we don’t even have the chance to switch. We can only watch the tide rise and fall from the shore, and when we re-enter the water, our position may have completely changed.

So, how should we respond to holiday risks?

Honestly, predicting what will happen during a holiday is impossible. No one can forecast when a tweet will be posted or what it will say.

But one thing can be done: think through several possible scenarios in advance. If the situation escalates, how will oil prices move? Can your positions withstand it? If it suddenly eases, which assets will recover first? Can you benefit? If nothing happens, will the market continue its previous trend or will new variables emerge?

Understanding these helps reduce anxiety during the holiday. Because regardless of the outcome, you have a plan. This way, you’re not gambling but waiting with preparation.

When the market reopens, don’t rush to guess the direction. First, assess what kind of risks have accumulated during the holiday, then see how different markets will reprice based on their own logic. Keep an eye on oil prices as the main switch, on the transmission chain from inflation to interest rates, and on the differences in reactions as markets open in batches.

Holidays should be a pause button. Now, it’s more like a tense spring, and how hard it springs back depends on how much energy was stored during the compression.

This is probably the new normal we are adapting to: holidays themselves have become part of the risk.