Over the past week several clients have asked whether the current geopolitical tensions will affect their investments, so I wanted to give a quick update and some perspective.
The short answer is: yes, markets have reacted – but no, we are not changing anything.
The world feels chaotic at the moment.
The news is dominated by Trump’s War on Iran, we still have the continued Russian war with Ukraine, and now Ukraine are accusing Hungary of stealing their money and gold. If you read the headlines alone, it can feel as though the entire global system is unravelling.
This has affected the stock markets, with them all dipping.
But this is also exactly what we have always discussed: markets go up and down. They always have, and they always will.
At some point after the strong run we have seen in the past year, markets were going to pull back again. For now, this appears to be the moment.
One of the most immediate impacts of the current tensions is on oil prices as the Middle East is where so much of our oil comes from, and with ships unable to get through, oil prices have risen as supply is limited.
At this uncertain time, it is important to remember something fundamental about investing:
We do not change investment strategies based on short-term headlines.
Your portfolios were carefully built around your attitude to risk, your financial goals, and your long-term time horizon. None of those things have changed because of a week of geopolitical news.
History also reminds us of something slightly uncomfortable but very real: wars do not necessarily mean markets fall for long. In fact, markets can sometimes rise during or after conflicts because rebuilding economies, infrastructure and supply chains requires enormous investment.
It is also worth putting the recent market movements into perspective.
This is what has happened to our 7 Blueberry portfolios over the last month:
The portfolios have roughly gone back to where they were at the start of the month. However, that makes very boring newspaper reading, so let’s go with markets in freefall 🙄.
Let’s compare this to the last year.
As can be seen from the below graph, the markets took a slight tumble near the start of 2025 when Trump came into power and announced his trade tariffs. They then rose quickly when those policies softened. The current fall on the far right of the chart, linked to the Iran conflict, is relatively small in comparison.
I know that markets can drop further, and they probably will as the uncertainty continues, and markets hate uncertainty, but let’s remember the financial crisis of 2008. At the time, the media coverage made it feel as though the entire financial system was collapsing permanently and that we were all destined to be poorer forever.
Yet today, when we look back at the charts, that crisis appears as a small blip on our investment timeline.
So, we are not making changes to portfolios.
The strategy remains the same: stay diversified, stay disciplined, and stay focused on the long term.
If anything, during periods like this it can sometimes be helpful to do what I often do myself — close your eyes and don’t look at your investments for a little while. Watching the daily movements rarely helps and often just adds unnecessary worry.
Markets will move. Headlines will come and go and they will always be dramatic, like my daughter đź¤. The world will continue to feel unpredictable at times.
Long-term investing has always been about looking beyond the noise.
And that is exactly what we will continue to do.
