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Strategies
Bad, Very Bad and Much Worse: Pick a Forecast for the War and Economy
A merely bad outlook might be good enough for the markets, our columnist says.
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Thomas Fuchs
By
Jeff Sommer
Jeff Sommer writes
Strategies
, a weekly column on markets, finance and the economy.
April 2, 2026,
9:57 a.m. ET
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The war in the Persian Gulf has already been bad for the markets and the global economy. There’s no question about that.
But from a purely financial standpoint, another issue looms: By the time all the fighting ends — whenever it ends — how big will its impact be? The best anyone can do at this stage is make educated guesses.
President Trump’s from-the-gut decision-making, combined with Iran’s resilient ability to close shipping lanes and wreak damage on Gulf energy production, means that the range of possibilities for this war is still staggeringly broad.
New forecasts come out continuously. Most scenarios go from bad to very bad — and much worse. It’s difficult to rule anything out.
The markets so far have embraced the merely bad predictions — which, under the current circumstances, amount to a positive outlook. Over the last month, Mr. Trump’s intermittent comments suggesting the war was almost over have set off rallies in the markets, only to be followed by setbacks.
In a speech from the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Trump
said
, “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”
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