A strategist unpacks the bullish thesis that helped him navigate the Iran war volatility
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- Stocks have climbed back to all-time highs in a rapid relief rally following the Iran war ceasefire.
- Ryan Detrick, Carson Group's chief market strategist, shared his investing thesis amid the big swings.
- De-escalation and earnings are the "one-two punch" the market needs to fuel the rally.
"The bears fumbled the ball," Ryan Detrick, Carson Group's chief market strategist, told Business Insider, as stocks traded at record highs this week.
Now, he said, the bulls are back in control.
Risk-on is back on Wall Street, with stocks erasing losses and climbing to back to all-time highs. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite hit fresh records after Iran announced the Strait of Hormuz was "completely open" to commercial shipping, addressing a major worry still hanging over markets.
Stock volatility has been a staple of 2026, largely fueled by the conflict in the Middle East.
Yet, Detrick has maintained a firmly bullish stance throughout the war. While others on the Street were issuing bearish warnings, Carson Group never abandoned its overweight rating on equities during the conflict.
The strategist shared the investing framework that informed his bullish view through the volatility: It's all relative.
"One thing we like to say at Carson is it's not about good or bad, it's about better or worse," Detrick said. "The stock market has an amazing ability to kind of adapt to whatever situation it's in," the strategist said, nodding to the market's only roughly 8% drawdown from prewar levels at March end lows.
On the relatively small pullback in stocks given the severity of the geopolitical instability, he said, "It was like the market's way of saying, potentially, things in the Middle East aren't going to totally, totally spiral out of control."
Detrick expects the bull run to gain steam as earnings season kicks off in earnest, saying that he expects strong results to be part of the "one-two punch," along with Iran de-escalation, that sends markets higher.
"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."