The Iran–US war: opportunity or threat?

This is the board at 2:45pm on 9 March 2026:

Barely a week after the US–Israel–Iran conflict escalated, global energy markets have reacted hard.

Crude went from around 69 USD a barrel to more than 110 USD a barrel, the highest in years.

In Vietnam, pump prices followed the world market almost immediately. After the most recent adjustment:

• RON95 petrol: about 27,000 VND/litre
• E5 petrol: about 25,000 VND/litre
• Diesel: above 30,000 VND/litre

Sharply higher energy prices, on top of high interest rates and tight liquidity, tend to produce something familiar in markets:

Panic.

But if you look back through investing history, moments like this carry an interesting lesson.

Great investors like Warren Buffett, Seth Klarman and Howard Marks do not respond with panic.

They respond with discipline and calm.

1. Big news is not the same as changed value

A war can move markets violently in the short run.

But the question that matters to an investor is still:

Does this war permanently destroy the business's ability to generate cash?

If the answer is no, the price move is usually temporary.

Markets have already lived through:

• World War II
• the Cold War
• the oil shocks
• many regional wars
• repeated financial crises

And companies kept producing, kept selling, kept creating value.

2. Crises produce irrational selling

When the market is afraid, many people sell not because they want to, but because they are forced to.

For example:

• margin calls
• investors pulling their money out
• funds cutting risk
• liquidity pressure

These create forced, irrational selling, which pushes prices below what the assets are worth.

That is when disciplined investors start to act.

3. Cash is worth most in a crisis

One thing the great investors share is that they always keep liquidity.

Cash lets them:

• buy good assets while the market dumps them
• take the rare opportunities that only appear in a crisis

In normal times cash can look like excessive caution.

In a crisis it becomes a strategic advantage.

4. Great investors think in decades

Markets react in days and weeks. Great investors think in ten to twenty years.

A war may last months or years.

But history shows one thing:

Economies keep developing.

Companies adapt. Technology advances. Productivity rises.

And eventually prices go back to reflecting that.

So is the Iran–US war an opportunity or a threat?

The answer is probably:

Both.

For the world and for the economy, war is always a serious threat.

But for investors with discipline, calm and a long horizon, unstable stretches are usually also when opportunity appears.

Because in investing, what creates opportunity is not the war.

It is human fear.

And market history has shown this many times:

Fear is always temporary. Long-term value keeps being created.