Investors endured the worst month for the S&P 500 since March 2025 as the war in Iran, rising oil prices, fears of artificial intelligence and high inflation, all weighed on market sentiment. For many high-net-worth and high-quality investors, volatility has been an opportunity to buy dips, balance investments and look for beneficiaries amid political tensions, oil volatility and a changing outlook for the US economy. Quiet and safe Cash flow is king for R360, a group of high net worth investors with over $100 million in assets. Members currently hold up to 30% short-term debt, according to R360 founding partner Barbara Goodstein. “Great opportunities may be around the corner, and our members have a lot of money if that opportunity arises,” said Goodstein, who stressed that the group’s members are not for sale. “This is a long-term investor group. These are not cash-strapped people. This is commodity wealth, so they don’t have to worry about short-term flips in the market.” UBS’s Jason Katz, who focuses on high-net-worth clients — especially sports and entertainment — sees a similar trend. “They want a signal. There’s a signal and there’s noise and it’s hard to distinguish between the two,” said Katz. “They don’t care about holding money because the chances of Fed rate cuts and those money market rates have decreased because of all this. So keeping some money in money that earns 3% and change is not the worst place to hide.” Christopher Keller, managing director, national private banking at Fifth Third Bank, sees a similar trend where high-net-worth investors see opportunities in the Treasury market. “With the 10-year Treasury up to 4.3% there has been interest from consumers to buy some fixed income,” said Keller. “It’s more in the 3-5, 3-6 (Treasury year) … it’s not too strong, we just had this hike in rates.” In choosing to pull back Sameer Samana, head of global funds and real estate at Wells Fargo Financial Center, said the strong pullback has created opportunities for high-quality and high-quality investors to buy technology at reasonable rates. “I think this is a situation where if you look at the technology sector and you look at the software companies, look at the hardware, that sector is the main opportunity for high capital funds to buy money. I think one would be funds,” said Samana. He added large caps are also the closest thing to a “safe haven” in the current market. “They tend to just have clean balance sheets, they have high profitability,” said Samana, “They have a lot of cash flow. … Obviously a lot of them have been using things like AI but if they’ve decided to stop investing in AI, they’re still going to have a boatload of cashflow to decide what to do. We like that option.” Large caps, however, did not fare so well in the first quarter. The S & P 500 shed 4.6% in Q1. It’s its worst quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2022 – when it fell 5.3%. .SPX YTD mountain SPX in 2026 R360 founder Charlie Garcia predicts a conflict with Iran in a post on Feb. 11. Now he sees an opportunity for serious correction. “I have things on my radar, and if things get crazy, which I think they will in the next six weeks, I feel like there’s going to be a big downturn,” he told CNBC. “There is a lot of energy in the market. There will be good opportunities to buy things at very low prices.” Garcia added that he is long in energy and defense with a focus on Lockheed Martin and RTX in the US defense space. Fifth Keller said consumers are divided on the new money distribution. At the beginning of the month and the conflict in Iran, many bought dips in the S & P 500 equal weight, small caps and international funds, but at the end of March, he saw a renewed interest in the technology business. “In the last week or so there has definitely been interest in technology,” said Keller, “But the technology side is difficult because they already have a lot of this from the last 10 years. They already have Nivida and Super Micro. It’s just a question: do I really need more? That’s the part of portfolio construction that they struggle with.” highest in March and the energy sector led the S&P 500 and the State Street SPDR S & P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) more than doubled. However, Wells Fargo’s Samana advises high-net-worth clients to view the energy market as a business and the metals market as an opportunity after gold, silver and platinum fell sharply last month. “We would like people to buy gold and precious metals and sell the movement of oil and energy. History tells you that these spikes in oil do not last. They should like gold and precious metals at the portfolio level,” he said. However, Garcia and many investors in the R360 group have transferred 40% of their new financial investments to the energy and property mix and Garcia advises members to invest in Canadian Natural Resources, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Cheniere Energy and the State Street SPDR S & P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP). Garcia.
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