Oil shock stalls stocks: Geopolitical risk trumps fundamentals

Global markets got a sharp reminder this week that geopolitics can override fundamentals in a matter of hours. Iranian strikes on two oil tankers sent crude prices surging toward US$100 a barrel, triggering a broad sell-off across equities and reigniting inflation fears that investors had hoped were fading. Rate cut expectations, priced in with quiet confidence just weeks ago, have since been walked back sharply.

In this episode of Market Focus Weekly, a podcast by The Business Times, Howie Lim speaks with Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, to work through a week of outsized moves and uneasy questions. The conversation opens with what markets actually did and didn’t do, and why that gap is itself telling. Sosnick brings a risk manager’s eye to the sell-off, arguing that the real story may not be the volatility you can see, but the pressure building in the parts of the market you can’t.

Why listen

• Why the sell-off may be smaller than the headlines suggest History and investor conditioning explain why equity markets haven’t fallen further. Sosnick explains why that cuts both ways.

• What the Strait of Hormuz actually means for oil prices This isn’t a brief airstrike scenario. Sosnick explains why a sustained closure changes the calculus entirely.

• Where the real stress is building Private credit markets, short-term rates and rate cut expectations are all shifting in ways that don’t make the front page.

• Why North Asian markets fell harder Japan and Korea gave back the most, but context matters. The Nikkei is still up 8 per cent for the year and Korea had run as high as 40 per cent before the conflict started.

Understanding what is a genuine structural shift and what is sentiment-driven noise will matter more in the weeks ahead than any single day’s moves. Listen now.

Discover more episodes at bt.sg/podcasts. Got feedback? Email us at btpodcasts@sph.com.sg.

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Written and hosted by: Howie Lim (howielim@sph.com.sg)

With Steve Sosnick, chief strategist, Interactive Brokers

Edited by: Howie Lim & Claressa Monteiro

Produced by: Howie Lim & Chai Pei Chieh

A podcast by BT Podcasts, The Business Times, SPH Media

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