Weekly Investment Update

Last week, Blackrocks CEO and Chairman Larry Fink published his annual letter to investors, and the timing could not be more instructive. It arrives at a moment of high market uncertainty, as the Middle East conflict disrupts and rocks the business world. Yet rather than adding to the noise, Fink's letter does the opposite. While the timing coincides with volatile global financial markets, Fink attempts to cut through the noise to identify opportunities and trends that can help investors build wealth.

The US-Israeli war on Iran, now in its fourth week, is generating real economic turbulence. Global oil prices have surged more than 25 percent, roughly a fifth of global crude and natural gas supply has been suspended, and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has effectively stalled. Brent crude recently rose to $108.66 a barrel following an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field.

Investors in the past two weeks could have benefitted from dusting off their old school literature exercise books and revisiting a poem by Nobel Prize winner Rudyard Kipling: "If". Written in 1910, four years before the First World War broke out, the poem deals with themes from patience and staying calm under pressure to rebuilding after loss. Its lessons feel remarkably, and perhaps uncomfortably, timely.

On 28 February 2026, Israel and the United States launched Operation Epic Fury, nearly 900 strikes in the first twelve hours, targeting Iran's leadership, nuclear programme, missile sites and air defences. The assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei marked the most dramatic opening salvo. Now in its tenth day, the conflict has deepened significantly. Israel's attacks on Iran's energy infrastructure have pushed the war into what Tehran describes as a "new phase," with Iranian strikes hitting targets in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Beersheba, and the US embassy in Kuwait struck and closed indefinitely. A US submarine has sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean. The cost to the US alone has been estimated at roughly $1 billion per day.

During this week's State of the Union address, President Trump raised an issue that rarely gets prime-time attention: retirement security. Buried between applause lines was an acknowledgment that half of all working Americans lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan. His proposed solution, a new savings account with a $1,000 annual federal match, signals something important: policymakers are beginning to take this seriously.

The market's relationship with artificial intelligence has undergone a sharp reversal, morphing from enthusiastic embrace to anxious recalibration. Software stocks have suffered the largest non-recessionary 12-month drawdown in more than 30 years, with the sector losing $2 trillion of market capitalization from its peak, reducing its weight in the S&P 500 to 8.4% from 12%. LPL Financial closed 8.31% lower on February 10th after tumbling 11% in midday trading, while Charles Schwab fell 7.42% and Raymond James Financial lost 8.75%.

Investment wisdom celebrates diversification as the cornerstone of prudent portfolio management. Yet investors increasingly face a paradox: portfolios appearing broadly diversified by company count yet dangerously concentrated by capital allocation.

Albert Szent-Györgyi's observation about discovery applies perfectly to active investment management in 2026. While growth stocks have dominated markets for fifteen years, value investing has quietly delivered exceptional returns across multiple markets, yet few investors have paid attention.