The coordinated attacks on Iranian military, nuclear, and leadership sites, in us attacks iran including the reported killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, represent a profound shock to Iran’s political system and a fundamental rupture in what had still looked, only a few days ago, like an ongoing diplomatic process. A third round of nuclear talks in Geneva had just concluded with the Omani mediator reporting “significant progress”. Washington apparently disagreed.
The stated US objective has evolved well beyond nuclear containment. US President Donald Trump’s direct address to the Iranian people, “take over your government, it will be yours to take”, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s framing of “removing an existential threat,” makes regime change the explicit goal.
That is a notable, legally challenging, and historically dangerous step. Middle Eastern history offers little encouragement for the statement that civilian populations take hold of orderly control once leadership structures collapse. Power vacuums tend to produce civil war, hardline consolidation, or prolonged fragmentation, and in some cases all three.
Contrary to the US bombs Iran last summer, Tehran didn’t wait long for its response. Firing back within four hours, hitting Israel, US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf, shows that crisis plans were already on the shelf.
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Needless to say, this remains a fast-moving environment. From the effect of middle east war on stock market perspective, two rather abstract general scenes could evolve from here.
From here, the possible military and geopolitical scenarios after Iran attack US could fill a book and also seem to change by the day. From the effect of middle east war on stock market, the diverging point is simpler and more brutal: does this end in days, or does it become a long war that will drag an entire region?
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US and Israeli strikes exhaust fixed military targets quickly, operational tempo drops, and a de facto ceasefire emerges within the week. Iranian retaliation stays bound, damaging enough to be politically useful domestically, but not enough to draw a decisive US counter-escalation. The Strait of Hormuz sees harassment but no serious disruption, partly because Tehran’s own oil exports to China depend on it. The regime either survives in weakened form or fractures into a messy internal transition.
For markets, this is the June 2025 playbook: an initial oil spike, which fades as Hormuz disruption fears ease. A temporary war premium, with no lasting macro implications.
President Trump said on Sunday evening that the war could last up to four or five weeks. Iranian retaliation to US Iran, which has hit 10 countries so far, does not point to any coming de-escalation.
In this more severe scenario, strikes continue past fixed military targets into infrastructure and mobile assets, lowering operational pace but extending the timeline indefinitely. Iran, backed into a corner with regime survival in question, escalates uneven economic warfare with sustained harassment of tanker traffic, activation of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, and attempts to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz.
Even partial disruption to a narrowline handling 20 million barrels per day of oil and over 100 bcm of LNG annually produces a supply shock of historic proportions. The whole region becomes unstable.
The effect of middle east war on stock market implications is materially different: oil moving toward $100 and beyond, a genuine equity market correction, a flight to bonds that holds rather than reverses, prolonged supply chain disruption for both China and Europe, and a central bank dilemma that has no clear answer.
The effects of war on the stock market and US Iran war on the global trading system had already been under stress from Trump’s tariff offensive and the remaining fragmentation of supply chains since COVID and the war in Ukraine. The Strait of Hormuz is the single most sensitive line in global energy trade, and it now sits in an active warzone.
Even without a formal blockade, the commercial consequences are already unfolding: insurers are cancelling cover, shipping premiums are spiking, and vessels are re-routing or pausing transits. The knock-on effects extend well beyond energy. Gulf airspace closures are disrupting aviation corridors between Europe and Asia. Houthi reactivation in the Red Sea would close the alternative routing valve that kept goods moving during earlier episodes of Hormuz tension.
Incase of a prolonged US Iran war, the combination of higher energy costs, disrupted logistics, and a generalised confidence shock would constitute a meaningful drag on global trade volumes at the exact moment the world economy was still digesting the inflationary and growth consequences of the tariff shock. The mother of all bad timings.
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For the US, even though the trade exposure to the Straits of Hormuz is limited, higher global oil prices would fuel the current cost-of-living crisis. US consumers are already stretched, and gasoline prices are acutely politically sensitive going into midterm territory. Higher oil prices would also complicate the Federal Reserve’s future monetary policy path.
A second supply-side inflation blow, while the inflationary impact from tariffs is still unfolding, could make further rate cuts hard to justify, at least in the near term. At the same time, if the conflict drags on and uncertainty weighs on business investment and consumer confidence, the growth outlook darkens too.
The one partial offset is that the US itself is a major oil producer; the shale patch gets benefits from higher oil prices and improves the terms of trade for domestic energy, even as they hurt consumers. But that balance is politically awkward to explain and economically insufficient to compensate for the broader damage.
Europe is where the macro consequences hit hardest, and the timing could not be worse. The eurozone was finally emerging from its long period of stagnation, with tentative green shoots of recovery emerging – though recently, these have been undermined by new uncertainty regarding tariffs. Now the region could face an energy shock on top of a trade shock.
Europe almost imports all of its oil and a significant share of its LNG. A surge in energy prices and potentially even energy supply disruption could bring back memories of the energy cost crisis from late 2021 to 2023. There are currently two important differences compared with the situation back then: Europe doesn’t have to ’derisk’ from a single important energy provider, and the oil price crisis comes at the end of the winter, not the start.
The European Central Bank is caught in a dilemma, especially after Iran attacks US base. Services inflation is still sticky, and an oil shock would push inflation higher, yet the growth outlook is simultaneously deteriorating under the combined weight of tariffs, uncertainty, and now energy costs.
Back in December, an ECB analysis showed that a 14% increase in oil prices would push up inflation by 0.5ppt and could reduce GDP growth by 0.1ppt. However, this would only be the price effect, not the supply chain disruption effect. Given the still relatively fresh memories of the recent inflation surge, the ECB is unlikely to see any new oil price-driven inflation spike as transitory or even deflationary. However, to see a rate hike, the eurozone economy would have to show clear resilience.
For now, Asia seems to be able to absorb the jump in oil prices, thanks to the low starting points, with inflation hugely in control in most of Asia. However, the severity and persistence of higher prices will ultimately determine the impact. If sustained, Asia is particularly vulnerable to oil price volatility more than the rest of the world because it depends heavily on imports; except for Australia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, all other economies run deficits in oil and gas trade, leaving them exposed when energy costs rise. If higher prices continue, three factors will shape the impact:
A significant share of Asia’s crude supply comes from the Persian Gulf. Japan and the Philippines rely on the region for almost 90% of their oil needs, while China and India import roughly 38% and 46% respectively. Any disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, in a critical shipping lane, would restrict supply, result in causing shortages that slow business activity, and put pressure on manufacturing across Asia.
Even without a physical supply disruption, higher global oil prices worsen trade balances and add to inflation pressures. Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, and the Philippines are the most exposed. A mere 10% rise in oil prices can deteriorate current account balances by 40-60 basis points. Prolonged increases would only deepen these deficits.
Because many emerging Asian economies have a relatively high weight of energy in their consumer inflation baskets, rising oil prices feed quickly into headline inflation. On average, a 10% increase in oil prices raises CPI inflation by about 0.2 percentage points.
Our base case had headline inflation across most of Asia rising in 2026 but still staying within most central bank targets. But a price shock of this magnitude, incase it lasts long, would likely push inflation above target ranges and increase the pressure on central banks to tighten policy sooner rather than later.
In Scene 1, the macro story is noise. A temporary oil spike, some safe-haven positioning, and back to the existing agenda of tariffs, growth differentials, and AI.
In Scene 2, the channels are oil, uncertainty, and the impossible central bank chaos that they create together. In this case, oil prices could run toward $100-140. For European gas, if LNG markets start pricing in extended losses to Qatari supply, TTF could spike toward €80-100/MWh.
Sustained high oil prices mean a delay in monetary policy easing. Although an oil price shock could be deflationary, the recent inflationary period will prevent most central banks from responding with monetary policy easing to a new oil price shock.
The initial safe-haven reflex is clear. Treasuries and Bund yields would move down, and gold rise, as we saw both this morning and as early as Friday, when markets started to anticipate military action. The safe-haven reflex fades if oil stays elevated and inflation re-accelerates.
On FX, investors will be contemplating a re-run of the March 2022 playbook, in which US energy independence led to a broad dollar rally against the fossil-fuel-importing currencies of Europe and Asia. The Fed’s broad trade-weighted dollar rallied 10%+ over a six-month period, where crude prices stayed elevated for a quarter, but European natural gas prices stayed sky-high for nearly six months.
Expect both the euro (EUR) and the Japanese Yen to come under sustained pressure from a prolonged spike in crude prices, while we could see some exceptionally sharp reversals in EM currencies involved in the carry trade. In Europe, that would leave the Hungarian forint as one of the most vulnerable, while there would also be much scrutiny on whether Turkish policymakers could manage outflows from the crowded lira carry trade. But in short, this year’s virtuous circle of flows out of the dollar and into EM could reverse and turn vicious.
For oil and gas markets, there will likely be some parallels made with 2022 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The oil supply at risk from a successful blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is roughly 15-20% of global supply, depending on how much supply the Saudis can divert by pipeline to the Red Sea. This is significantly higher than the 7-8m b/d of Russian oil supply (which is around 7-8% of global supply) that was at risk during the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war, when we saw Brent spike to almost $140/bbl.
However, helping to a certain degree at the moment is that oil inventories are more comfortable than they were in the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. OECD stocks are in the region of 200m barrels higher now than prior to the Russia/Ukraine war. But still, a two-week full blockade would essentially see this buffer disappear, leaving significant upside to prices.
For natural gas, as much as 125bcm of LNG flows are at risk, which is around 3% of global natural gas consumption, but 22% of global LNG trade. However, the roughly 15bcm that Oman exports will be at less of a risk, given cargoes don’t need to navigate the Strait of Hormuz, but will still be in proximity to danger.
In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, close to 160bcm of Russian gas (pipeline and LNG to the EU) was at risk. The market is relatively better positioned now, given the buildup of LNG export capacity, largely from the US.
Since the beginning of 2025, we have seen around 40bcm of US capacity starting up, while a further 14bcm is set to start this year, and there will be significantly more in the years ahead. However, in the immediate term, capacity additions fall well short of potential Persian Gulf supply losses.
A tighter market would see Asia and Europe competing more aggressively for LNG cargoes, pushing up prices. Price-sensitive buyers in Asia will likely step back from the market, while Europe would likely not make the same mistake as it did in 2022, where buyers bought aggressively regardless of price levels.
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Disclaimer: This publication is solely provided for informational purposes only and does not take into account any individual’s financial situation, investment objectives, or risk tolerance. The information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice, legal advice, tax advice, or a final statement, nor should it be interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument.
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