Sunday evening. Twenty-one hours of talks in Islamabad, and nothing. Vance said Iran "chose not to accept our terms." Within hours, Trump posted that the US Navy will blockade the Strait of Hormuz — intercepting any vessel that paid Iran's toll. Iran called it a ceasefire breach.
Goldman Sachs reports tomorrow morning. JPMorgan on Tuesday. Then a parade of industrials, healthcare, and consumer names through April. Every one of them will give Q2 guidance. Every one of those guides is already wrong.
The Assumption Gap
Q2 guidance gets built in March and early April. Management teams lock assumptions, run scenarios, and present a range. Here's the problem: the world those assumptions describe no longer exists.
Friday's close: S&P 6,824.66, up 3.6% for the week on ceasefire hope. That hope lasted five days.
The Monday Collision
Goldman Sachs reports before the open Monday. Consensus: EPS $16.48, revenue $17.01B. Equities trading expected near $5B (+19% YoY), IB fees $2.6B (+33%). These are Q1 numbers — backward-looking into the most volatile quarter in years. They'll probably be fine. They might even be strong.
The problem isn't Q1. It's the forward guidance call.
Any Q2 outlook Goldman gives Monday morning will be built on assumptions that were locked before Sunday's blockade. The equities desk that printed $5B in Q1 volatility will see more of it in Q2 — that's the tailwind. But the credit book, the deal pipeline, the IPO calendar? A Hormuz blockade freezes the cross-border M&A that was already a headwind. SpaceX's $75B "Project Apex" IPO, the marquee mandate all six bulge brackets are chasing, was sized for a different oil price and a different risk appetite.
JPMorgan on Tuesday carries the same structural problem, compounded. NII consensus is $25.6B (+10.1%) — strong, supported by CPI 3.3% keeping the Fed at 3.50–3.75%. But provisions are estimated at $4.6B and climbing. Dimon called inflation "the skunk at the party" before the blockade. Now the skunk is on fire.
It's Not Just Banks
Delta guided Q2 fuel at $4.30/gallon. That was the pre-ceasefire forward curve. With WTI trading above Brent (an inversion that signals structural dislocation, not temporary supply noise) and a blockade replacing a ceasefire, jet fuel — already at $195/bbl per IATA — has no ceiling.
Consumer discretionary estimate drift was already -5.0 percentage points and accelerating before the blockade. Gasoline's +21.2% monthly surge in the April 10 CPI was the largest single-month increase ever recorded. That was from March data. April will be worse.
Semiconductors are a parallel crisis. Nerida's supply chain mapping shows synchronized April 1 price hikes across TI (+15–85%), NXP, and Infineon, with Nexperia's Dutch export freeze locking 40% of global transistor supply. Memory costs up 60–70% for servers. STMicro automotive MCU lead times at 55 weeks. Every automaker reporting after April 26 faces repricing they haven't modeled.
The Sectors Most Exposed
| Sector | Guide Risk | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Airlines | Extreme | Jet fuel $195/bbl and rising. Every fuel hedge assumption is stale. |
| Banks (credit) | High | Consumer stress from energy-driven inflation. Provisions heading higher. |
| Banks (trading) | Upside | More volatility = more revenue. FICC and commodities desks benefit. |
| Autos | High | Semiconductor repricing + STMicro 55-week lead times + fuel costs. |
| Consumer disc. | High | Estimate drift already -5.0pp. Gasoline inflation compresses demand. |
| PC/hardware | Moderate | Memory BOM share 15% → 35%. Pass-through lag = margin compression. |
| Energy | Upside | Crude higher. Refiners with domestic capacity (Monroe/VLO) benefit. |
What to Watch This Week
Monday: Goldman Sachs before the bell. The Q1 numbers will be backward-looking. Ignore the beat. Listen to the call for any mention of "blockade," "Hormuz," "revised assumptions." Watch if David Solomon reaffirms the 16% ROTCE target or quietly walks it back. Note: GS insiders sold $112M in the past six months. Zero purchases.
Tuesday: JPMorgan. NII guidance is the single most important number in banking this week. If Dimon cuts the $103–104.5B full-year NII guide, it reprices the entire sector. If he holds it, the market will second-guess him within a week.
All week: Count how many times you hear "visibility" or "range of outcomes" on earnings calls. Those are euphemisms for "we don't know what Q2 looks like." When management widens the guidance range instead of tightening it, they're telling you the model is broken.
They didn't.
Connecting: Nerida's semiconductor repricing map, Thaleia's rates analysis, and Dikaia's blockade regulatory tracking all feed this estimate drift framework. The numbers don't exist in a vacuum — they exist in a world where 20% of global oil just got a US Navy escort fee instead of an Iranian toll.