Battered by COVID-era inflation, many Americans are understandably concerned about the impact of another war on their finances – but data suggests American bank accounts won’t become casualties.
Energy affects the price of everything, and missiles are flying in a region that produces a third of global oil exports. If supply is constrained, prices will increase, but the current global supply is better positioned than in the past.
Global inventories are currently around 6.5 billion barrels of oil, the highest level this decade. The world consumes only 1.57% of that total each day. Middle Eastern oil production is at one of its low points. During the 1970s energy crisis, the region produced about 55% of the world’s oil. Today, the share is 35%.
In 2018, the United States became the world’s largest oil producer, dethroning Russia and Saudi Arabia thanks to the shale revolution of the late 2000s. The revolution was driven by a technological advancement that combined fracking and horizontal drilling, allowing the US to unlock oil that was previously unreachable.
The Daily Wire reviewed data from a leading Wall Street bank that concluded the high inventory and increased oil production from the United States would help offset costs from elevated oil prices. In an analysis of 21 previous air strikes in the region, the bank found that there was typically an initial spike in oil prices that subsided over the following two months.
So far, markets are tracking that historical pattern. This month, Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) are up roughly 15% in the days following Saturday’s strikes. The bank concluded a sustained increase in oil prices would raise headline inflation by 0.2%, a drop in the bucket compared to what consumers experienced from 2022 to 2024.
The bank also predicts that GDP growth will drop by less than a tenth of a percent for the year. Experts attribute the Fall government shutdown to a 0.06 to 0.12 percentage-point loss in GDP.
Beyond oil, the bank’s data also showed promising expectations for the broader market. After eight weeks, gold, the U.S. dollar, and 10-year Treasury bonds posted gains in most instances, and U.S. equities were higher in 20 of the 21 cases. Despite initial declines from the strikes, US large-cap equities are still hovering around all-time highs with earnings beating analyst expectations for the fourth quarter by 6% and high expectations for 2026.
Even JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, Wall Street’s designated worrier, is expressing calm: “The economy is not often driven by something like that unless it is prolonged.”
What Dimon did warn about back in 2022, however, was cumulative inflation. “Inflation is eroding everything I just said,” said Dimon. “When you’re looking out forward, those things may very well derail the economy and cause a mild or hard recession that people worry about.”
A sustained conflict could alter the outlook, though. A fifth of global oil and LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz, and analysts predict triple-digit oil prices if Gulf production halts. Trump has floated the idea of using the US Navy to accompany ships traveling through the strait to mitigate that risk.
Dr. Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow at the free-market think tank Pacific Research Institute, echoed a measured view in comments to The Daily Wire.
“If prices stay around $80 a barrel and supplies don’t get more constrained, over the next two months it could be painful but it would not be a barnburner. However, the severe effect would be prices going up to $90 a barrel and they stay there for a year.”
Winegarden explained that a significant loss of Gulf production would force more countries back into the global market for supply, driving prices higher. However, he added that higher prices would also incentivize producers elsewhere to ramp up output, increasing supply over time and helping stabilize the market.
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[[{“value”:”
Battered by COVID-era inflation, many Americans are understandably concerned about the impact of another war on their finances – but data suggests American bank accounts won’t become casualties.
Energy affects the price of everything, and missiles are flying in a region that produces a third of global oil exports. If supply is constrained, prices will increase, but the current global supply is better positioned than in the past.
Global inventories are currently around 6.5 billion barrels of oil, the highest level this decade. The world consumes only 1.57% of that total each day. Middle Eastern oil production is at one of its low points. During the 1970s energy crisis, the region produced about 55% of the world’s oil. Today, the share is 35%.
In 2018, the United States became the world’s largest oil producer, dethroning Russia and Saudi Arabia thanks to the shale revolution of the late 2000s. The revolution was driven by a technological advancement that combined fracking and horizontal drilling, allowing the US to unlock oil that was previously unreachable.
The Daily Wire reviewed data from a leading Wall Street bank that concluded the high inventory and increased oil production from the United States would help offset costs from elevated oil prices. In an analysis of 21 previous air strikes in the region, the bank found that there was typically an initial spike in oil prices that subsided over the following two months.
So far, markets are tracking that historical pattern. This month, Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) are up roughly 15% in the days following Saturday’s strikes. The bank concluded a sustained increase in oil prices would raise headline inflation by 0.2%, a drop in the bucket compared to what consumers experienced from 2022 to 2024.
The bank also predicts that GDP growth will drop by less than a tenth of a percent for the year. Experts attribute the Fall government shutdown to a 0.06 to 0.12 percentage-point loss in GDP.
Beyond oil, the bank’s data also showed promising expectations for the broader market. After eight weeks, gold, the U.S. dollar, and 10-year Treasury bonds posted gains in most instances, and U.S. equities were higher in 20 of the 21 cases. Despite initial declines from the strikes, US large-cap equities are still hovering around all-time highs with earnings beating analyst expectations for the fourth quarter by 6% and high expectations for 2026.
Even JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, Wall Street’s designated worrier, is expressing calm: “The economy is not often driven by something like that unless it is prolonged.”
What Dimon did warn about back in 2022, however, was cumulative inflation. “Inflation is eroding everything I just said,” said Dimon. “When you’re looking out forward, those things may very well derail the economy and cause a mild or hard recession that people worry about.”
A sustained conflict could alter the outlook, though. A fifth of global oil and LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz, and analysts predict triple-digit oil prices if Gulf production halts. Trump has floated the idea of using the US Navy to accompany ships traveling through the strait to mitigate that risk.
Dr. Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow at the free-market think tank Pacific Research Institute, echoed a measured view in comments to The Daily Wire.
“If prices stay around $80 a barrel and supplies don’t get more constrained, over the next two months it could be painful but it would not be a barnburner. However, the severe effect would be prices going up to $90 a barrel and they stay there for a year.”
Winegarden explained that a significant loss of Gulf production would force more countries back into the global market for supply, driving prices higher. However, he added that higher prices would also incentivize producers elsewhere to ramp up output, increasing supply over time and helping stabilize the market.
“}]]
