It is time to visit eggs again.
It’s time.
It’s time to revisit prices again, especially as the Iran war continues with the Strait of Hormuz blocked.
Frankly, I must be picking the wrong things to track because I did not really see much price increase since the tariffs were instituted. I think my choices were items that were not imported much.
Below I show a few graphs showing trends of some sorts. Data comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis (FRED). Hopefully those are still reliable.
Milk prices
Image 1a: Average annual milk prices
Image 1b: Closer look at monthly milk prices
In image 1a, it appears that milk prices were going up during the Trump administration and then kind of leveled out in 2022. In image 1b, it is hard to see tariff effect.
Milk was a bad item to track as I don’t think we import milk and tariffs effect imports.
Egg prices
Egg prices were the stuff people kept talking about back in 2024. That was the food item people were bellyaching about.
Image 2a: Average annual egg prices
Image 2b: Closer look at eggs average monthly price
Egg prices do paint a picture: in image 2a, you can see prices climb steeply upward and then dramatically drop in 2025.
Poor Biden, he got hit with the bird flu during this time and so farmers had to cull their chickens to take out those infected or possibly infected with the bird flu to prevent the spread of the disease.
Again, I don’t think we import eggs so they will not be heavily impacted by tariffs.
Gas
I think we export more gas than we import – save those for refinery processing – so tariffs might or might not have an impact.
But the Iran war should have an impact. Let’s take a look.
Image 3a: Weekly gas prices
Image 3b: Closer look at weekly gas prices
Image 3a has a little error in terms of where the dark shading resides but in the graph, there is a steep decline in gas prices during March to May 2020, due to the closing of everything during the pandemic. And then as things started to open up, gas prices surged peaking sometime in June 2022.
Image 3b hints at the end of the graph a strong surge in gas prices due to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Straight up. People immediately felt the impact.
Coffee prices
Okay, let’s check on something that could be impacted by tariffs.
Image 4a: Average annual coffee prices
Image 4b: Closer look at coffee prices
Well, coffee prices have been going up, up, up, since the pandemic. I can’t see any tariff impact.
So far, nothing definitive from the tariffs.
Although, I do feel grocery prices going up.
Stock Market – Dow Jones
Let’s turn to the stock market to see what has been transpiring due to major events.
I was able to retrieve the Dow and the S&P but I could not pull the NASDAQ.
I added 3 red arrows to point out major events:
- First arrow on the left: March 2020 pandemic.
- Second arrow: the announcement of Liberation Day in April 2025.
- Third arrow: the beginning of Iran war 2/28/2026.
There are other steep drops but I don’t know what they are. I would have to do more research.
S&P
In this chart, I added 4 arrows.
- First arrow: March 2020 announcement to close everything due to the pandemic.
- Second arrow: Stock prices start to rise upon election of Trump for second term.
- Third arrow: The peaking of stock in January 2025 and then a steady decline. I’m having trouble with the rise just before he assumes office and then the subsequent decline upon ascension.
- Fourth arrow: April 2025 steep decline upon announcement of Liberation Day.
Right now it may be too early to tell about the impact of the Iran war.
Charting is messy
The stories from the charts are not really clear. There are a few areas here and there where you can tie movement to the historical moments or the policy announcement. But there are no clear-cut imagery of tariffs making an impact.
Note: Dark News
So…the Iran war is really worrisome. I’m scared, anxious and maybe depressed.
Last week, my friend who deals with astrology and has had some remarkable predictions (is that the right word?) did tell me that something was going to happen during the last week of February. Sure enough, it did – on February 28.
We spoke about it the following Monday and she warned me that the next 3 weeks was going to be unstable and possibly prone to more crises.
Soon after that, I saw a video from a guy who is an expert in the oil and gas and policy. He appears to have a pretty good handle on the oil and gas because during the Venezuela incident, he said that there was no way that oil and gas companies would go back to Venezuela unless something change. The O&G’s experience with Venezuela was not good and the situation there had not improved.
He turned out to be right: the CEO of the largest O&G company said, “Thanks but no thanks. The return on that effort is not there.”
For this Iran war, he said that the war should end or the Strait of Hormuz should open by the 3rd week. It has to open. He sounded dead certain that the situation had to resolve by the 3rd week.
He talked about how economists, energy traders and probably others did thousands of simulations on what would happen if the Strait of Hormuz were to close. The reason for the intense focus is because about 20% of gas and LNG go through that Strait. Shut it down and severe economic consequences ensue.
He didn’t really say (or I didn’t hear) but someone else said “deep, deep, deep, deep, deep recession”. I take that to mean a depression.
Gas prices will go up and already has gone up. I’m hearing $5/gallon when it was previously $2 to $3 dollars. There’s talk of $8.
Last time we had a gas crisis was during the 70s but commentators say this one is more consequential. At that time, I think the effected supply was 4%; this one looks like to be 20%.
I was a kid then, but I remember the talk of long gas lines.
Latest rumor is that the Israelis are now regretting initiating the attack because there seems to be no way to exit. Or things are getting crazy. Or the war is not going the way they expected.
The other thing is I don’t understand why we even attacked Iran. They say that an attack was imminent but last summer their nuclear capabilities was supposedly destroyed. I also haven’t heard what the signal would be that we won; the top leaders of Iran have been killed and yet the war still goes on. There don’t seem to be any exit plans.
I don’t know if the O&G guy is still thinking the problem will be resolved during the 3rd week – which is the upcoming week (we now finished week 2 at this point). I’m trying to assess if he is getting more nervous.
The problem is those men who did the simulations probably did not take into account about fanatical religious behavior that would keep the strait closed. I have seen a headline or heard somewhere that Iran plans to keep the strait closed until our midterm elections. I guess they are hoping the US will vote in Democrats in huge numbers in both the House and the Senate, and thence, proceed to impeachment and conviction of the President.
Six months of hell. I don’t know if people will maintain their sanity that long. There could be uprisings, or countries beginning to join the war to open the strait or other bombings. Right now, Iran is bombing other countries, but they may do further damage. Somebody said Iran may do something to make the Middle East unlivable.
The people doing the simulations also did not take into account the kind of President we have: he is unpredictable and does not conform to normal behavior. So their simulations could not have predicted the type of moves he would make.
Somebody said the die was cast when he was voted in as President and I do agree with that assessment. We are going to have to go through the hell before we get on the other side, whatever that may be.
Hopefully we will still have land, property and life still going on.
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