For two quarters, one story dominated global markets: conflict with Iran, the oil shock it triggered, and the risk premium that washed through every asset class. This page follows the full arc, from the opening strikes to the peace deal that unwound the premium, together with the cross-asset framework that made sense of it. Each section links to our detailed analysis.
Latest in this story
The Invisible Blockade: War-Risk Insurance · 22 Jul 2026
The shock: war and the oil spike
Operation Epic Fury covered the US-Israeli strikes that reshaped markets overnight, and Oil above $100 examined the Strait of Hormuz closure that turned a regional conflict into a global energy shock.
The fallout
The shock radiated outward. The GCC economic model under threat assessed the damage to the Gulf, the Q1 2026 market correction tallied the worst first quarter since 2022, and the Fed holding amid the Iran war showed a central bank caught between a weakening jobs market and oil-driven inflation. By mid-July the dispute had reached the waterway itself: a 20 per cent transit toll was announced and withdrawn within 24 hours, while a naval blockade resumed and daily transits sat roughly 85 per cent below pre-war levels.
From war to blockade
The ceasefire did not end the disruption. From war to blockade tracked the naval standoff that proved more commercially disruptive than expected, and the BoJ and Iran oil twin shocks showed the energy spike colliding with monetary policy in late April. How the blockade actually works, through underwriters rather than warships, is dissected in the invisible blockade: war-risk insurance repricing Hormuz.
The de-escalation
The unwind came quickly. The OPEC production increase meeting the peace trade added barrels into a turning market, and the US Iran peace deal drained the risk premium out of crude in a matter of sessions. That unwind lasted three weeks: the July tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz broke the truce, revoked Iran’s oil waiver and rebuilt the premium.
The framework
Running through it all was a portfolio question. Defence, energy and gold: the 2026 geopolitical portfolio set out why these were structural positions rather than tactical trades, a framework the peace trade has since put to the test.
The through-line
The arc shows how fast a geopolitical premium can build and unwind, and why gold’s behaviour, holding firm even as oil fell, separates the tactical from the structural. We update this hub as events develop; the latest analysis always appears first on our analysis page.