Markets are moving more on hope than realistic expectations, as we have seen repeatedly during this war. The only salvation is to understand the time objective of the investment and asset allocation and behave accordingly. 

Markets and economies are hanging onto every bit of news and hope coming out of the Middle East - but the longer this goes on, the longer it will take to recover. Markets are giving us rare opportunities to buy into this late cycle, but you have to have a cool head and strong stomach. 

It's all a chaotic mess of changing geo-econo-political players right now. We are probably witnessing a change in the world order in real time, and everyone, including markets, can just watch and wait. 

This week, we start looking for potential off-ramps from this war and the market opportunities that might present in this time of peak 'fear' in stocks. Are we seeing the end of an era, not unlike the fall of the Roman and British empires? You can get all the week's news from our newsletters on www.rexsolom.co.za where you can sign up for free. 

Only days into this Iran war, and the economic foreshadowing is already rearing its head. Markets are slowing, but there's no panic - yet. The longer the Straits of Hormuz stay closed, though, the greater the impact, and the longer it'll take to recover. Oil has joined gold on the resource supercycle. 

It's never 'fun' to watch historical moments play out and see the stomach-churning effects on markets, but this also presents opportunities and a time to test our FOMO, perhaps?

As we record this, the Middle East is in serious turmoil, which could have a significant impact on global markets and economies. As a bit of a bright note, we give some of the highlights of the RSA budget. As always, more info in our free newsletter, sign up at www.rexsolom.co.za  

In this week's podcast, Dawn and Cobie discuss the new tariff regime imposed by a miffed Trump last week. The rest of the world is holding the cards; they're moving on, now they just need to step up. How is AI evolving? How quickly can they monetise the massive capex, and hang onto those lofty valuations? 

In South Africa this week it was the annual non-event the SONA, and the rest of the world was preoccupied with the Epstein files. Will Warsh drop interest rates despite a pretty hot economy? Is he going to be a Trump Yes-Man? This podcast is based on our free newsletter - get on the database at www.rexsolom.co.za

This podcast is based on our free newsletter (www.rexolom.co.za) and this week we cover some of the earnings, and the misses and their impact, looking in more detail at Microsoft. We always keep an eye on what the next leg of this AI race is going to be, and try - not always successfully - to see what DJT's topic of the week is.