We’re not used to so many things going wrong at the same time, especially when, as the days go on, they can’t suddenly go right. Moreover, we can’t process something that seems unfathomable — a short war —when the calendar says it’s no longer short. We also can’t adjust to the notion that no matter what we do —as in the United States and the Israelis as allies — we can’t defeat what we thought was a country in Iran with limited war-making abilities. The efforts we have made, the bombings we’ve delivered, and the brazen assassinations the Israelis have wrought, seems to have emboldened the opposition, leaving us to think Iran can create limitless damage. Oh, and the 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields are marching higher — with some, if not all, those gains related to concerns that disruptions to the impossibly complex supply chain beginning in the Gulf will rekindle inflation. Higher rates means the pain from the war has spread from the directly impacted to pretty much everyone. The exception, of course, is the oil companies that get a free ride off the hostilities. Makes you want to own Chevron , ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil , plus a couple of robust domestic oil and gas companies and nothing else. It’s a great time to be a hedge fund, an awful time to be a long-only investor, and a truly miserable time to run a charitable trust, hamstrung by no ability to short stocks, limited ability to take quick, evasive action — If I mention a stock on TV, we can’t trade it for 72 hours — and no desire to raise cash beyond the incredibly high 15% level we had last week. US10Y YTD mountain The 10-year Treasury yield in 2026. The war in Iran began Feb. 28, and the spike in yields coincides with that date. Plus, the fluidity of the situation is completely unnerving. Initially, with the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other Iranian leaders and the laying to waste of Iran’s missile and drone capacity, a short war seemed on the table. We heard endlessly about how our military took out Iran’s launchers and their missile defenses, leaving the country without its ability to stop our offensive weapons from creating havoc. But then Reuters reported on Friday that the U.S. can only confirm a third of Iran’s missile arsenal has been exhausted, leaving us to believe they have more firepower than we do. By the end of the week, we realized we have a long war ahead that has gotten beyond the grasp of a president who thinks we have fought wars and didn’t mind losing them, and Donald Trump is not one of the presidents who let that happen. That’s for other, less-equipped occupants of the Oval Office. The result: We have gone from the manageable to the unthinkable in four weeks, a quick set of airstrikes to potential boots on the ground that leads to a protracted conflict with no allies. It’s a nightmare that will end like all of the geopolitical encounters where oil goes up roughly 100% in a short time, leaving us with a stock market that has always gone down at least 20%, as JPMorgan Asset Management’s Michael Cembalest highlighted in his recent
