What the Attack on Iran Means for Your Stocks

Did you wake up this weekend, check the news, and feel a slight pit in your stomach? You're not alone. The US and Israel's attack on Iran is dominating every single headline. All the minute-by-minute updates kind of feels like we're standing on the brink of a nasty and dark geopolitical storm. And as an investor, your first instinct is probably to open your brokerage app, look at the sea of red on your screen, and hit the sell button before the storm gets worse. It's completely natural to be worried right now. War brings chaos, and the stock market hates uncertainty. When a geopolitical storm makes landfall, unfortunately, most investors realize too late that their portfolio is built out of straw. But before you panic sell your stocks, let's strip away the emotion. In this video, we're going to look at the cold hard data of how the stock market actually behaved during major military shocks since 1940. We're also going to break down Donald Trump's negotiation style and strategic patterns to explore why this conflict could resolve faster than the media narrative currently implies. And most importantly, we're going to look at why holding the right battle-tested companies, businesses forged in the fires of both global crises and their own multi-billion dollar blunders is the ultimate safe harbor when the world feels like it's falling apart. Quick disclaimer, I'm not a financial advisor. This is just an analysis of stocks I own. Always do your own research before investing. All right, let's do this. Let's take a look at how markets reacted to major geopolitical events like this attack on Iran. Over the weekend, Ryan Dietrich shared this chart on Twitter detailing how the S&P 500 performed following geopolitical and major historical events going all the way back to World War II. And if you parse through the data, a clear objective pattern emerges. When a major shock event happens, whether it's the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 9-11 attacks, or the start of the Iraq War, the immediate short-term reaction is often a coin toss. Looking at the data for the first month after a crisis, the market is historically higher only 46.5% of the time with an average return of approximately negative 1%. It's volatile. It's super choppy. But the stock market is a forward-looking machine. It digests the shock, calculates the economic reality, and moves on. Half a year after a major geopolitical shock, the market is positive nearly 62% of the time. Fast forward 12 months, and the market is historically higher 65% of the time with a median return of 7.4%. So the takeaway here is geopolitical shocks like the US attacking Iran this weekend rarely cause prolonged bear markets on their own. While the headlines are sensational and terrifying, history proves that selling the news during a military conflict is almost always a losing bet for long-term investors. Now historical market averages only tell part of the story. The trajectory of this attack on Iran will also be shaped by the instincts and negotiating habits of the man calling the shots. Donald Trump's track record on the global stage revolves around a very specific strategy, the exaggerated overwhelming opening bid. Kind of like a poker player who sits down at the table and immediately pushes all their chips into the center on the very first hand. Whether it's threatening sky-high sweeping tariffs on global trade, or the sudden extraction of Venezuela's president in early 2026, or the targeted bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities in mid-2025, the strategy relies on extreme unannounced and swift action. The goal is not to start a 20-year quagmire, but rather to use overwhelming exaggerated force to instantly seize the absolute highest ground for negotiation. It's kind of like swinging a sledgehammer to crack a walnut just so the other side knows you have a sledgehammer. If he sticks to this historical track record, there's a fairly strong probability that this weekend's attack on Iran is designed to be a quick severe operation meant to force an immediate geopolitical reset, rather than the start of a prolonged agonizing war. And a quick resolution is exactly what the stock market loves to price in. So the broader market historically survives, and the current administration prefers swift resolutions. But during times of extreme uncertainty, it's a good idea to check in on your stock positions. Ideally, you want to park your capital in impenetrable fortresses that have survived past crises. Author Nassim Taleb pioneered the term anti-fragile. It describes systems that don't just survive chaos, but actually thrive and grow stronger because of it. When a global crisis hits, it wipes out weak speculative businesses. But for the highest performing companies on earth, a macro crisis is just another Tuesday. To find these ultimate safe havens, you have to look for companies that have survived global economic meltdowns and their own catastrophic company-destroying internal blunders. So I did some research and I ranked the top 5 battle-tested fortresses you want to own when the world is in chaos. At number 5 is Google. Google is like a robust Teflon frying pan. No matter how messy the geopolitical or public relations disaster gets, nothing seems to stick to their bottom line. Geopolitical tensions flare, advertisers might briefly pull back, but the world's reliance on information and cloud infrastructure skyrockets. Google is an absolute financial fortress that has proven it can survive anything, including its own massive ego. They recently navigated intense Department of Justice antitrust trials and suffered self-inflicted $100 billion flash crashes due to botched AI rollouts, like the BARD telescope error and the Gemini image generator controversy. Yet after all the negative PR, they've managed to build Gemini into one of the top LLMs in the world, right alongside ChatGPT and Claude, and their core cash flow never stopped. After all these significant setbacks, their stock has risen back to near all-time highs. Google's moat is so deep that they're virtually immune to external shocks. At number 4 is Netflix. If you want proof of a company that thrives under pressure, look at Netflix's ability to ruthlessly adapt. They are the corporate equivalent of a phoenix, willing to burn their own nest to the ground just to be reborn stronger. They survived the 2008 recession right as they were transitioning away from DVDs. More importantly, they have repeatedly and intentionally destroyed their own stock price to force necessary evolution. They swallowed a 75% stock crash during the 2011 Quickster debacle and another 70% crash in 2022, 11 years later, when they pivoted to include ads and cracked down on password sharing. And with their recent bid for Warner Brothers that ultimately led to them passing on the acquisition, they've proven that they're no stranger to taking big risks and facing uncertainty head-on. And when the macro environment gets volatile, people stay home. They lock their doors and they watch Netflix. Their pricing power is fairly bulletproof. At number 3 is Amazon. In Greek mythology, if you cut off one head of the hydra, two more grow back in its place. That's Amazon. During the dot-com crash of 2000, Wall Street dubbed the company Amazon.bomb. The stock suffered a terrifying 94% drawdown. 94%. They like basically almost went bankrupt. But they survived, restructured, and went on to weather the 2008 great financial crisis. Even when they create their own disasters like the humiliating $170 million failure of the 2014 Fire Phone, they pivot seamlessly. That smartphone failure directly birthed the Amazon Echo and the multi-billion dollar Alexa ecosystem. During wartime or supply chain shocks, Amazon's logistics network operates like vital national infrastructure. Our number 2 company faced a stress test so severe, it wasn't just about a falling stock price. It was about whether the company would literally exist the following month. Tesla is surrounded by a constant storm of negative PR and geopolitical noise. But the real crucible happened between 2017 and 2019, during what Elon Musk called production and logistics hell for the Model 3. Tesla was burning cash at a terrifying rate. Musk later admitted they were about one single month away from complete bankruptcy. But like a blade thrust into the fire, they survived. By pushing the company right to the edge of the cliff, they stress tested their manufacturing capabilities under life or death pressure. That crucible gave them a structural lead that makes them highly resilient to the very supply chain shocks that wars usually trigger. And even with Elon Musk's polarizing political tweets, the Model Y has still maintained its position as the best selling car in the world for 3 years and counting. If we're ranking companies objectively based on the absolute dollar amount of value destroyed and the sheer magnitude of the bounce back, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the corporate stress test is Meta. No company has faced a more sustained multi-front war on its public image. They survived the unprecedented 2018 Cambridge Analytica data scandal. They survived the existential threat of TikTok and Apple's devastating iOS privacy update. But the ultimate stress test was self-induced. Driven by incredibly high ambitions, Mark Zuckerberg pivoted the entire company to the Metaverse. The market revolted. Meta lost roughly $750 billion in market cap, a staggering 77% drawdown. The media declared Meta dead. And then came the ultimate bounce back. Meta implemented a year of efficiency, ruthlessly cut costs, and used open source AI to rebuild their ad targeting. The stock rocketed out of the ashes to hit new all-time highs. Surviving a multi-year PR nightmare and a three quarters of a trillion dollar wipeout to come out stronger on the other side is an unprecedented flex of corporate anti-fragility. If they can survive themselves, they can survive a geopolitical shock. So what's the takeaway for you and your portfolio today? When the news cycle is dominated by missiles and military escalation, the instinct to sell is overpowering. But the historical data proves that giving in to that fear is usually a mistake. The market digests war and it eventually moves higher. But more importantly, this is why you own heavily entrenched founder-led tech monopolies. These companies are built to be unkillable. They have already paid the tuition for their invaluable real-life survival experience. When you buy these stocks, you're not avoiding volatility. You're actually guaranteeing it. But you're also buying the companies that are the least likely to ever go to zero. They're stress-tested fortresses. Let the market panic. For the patient investor holding anti-fragile companies, a macro crisis isn't a reason to sell. It's the ultimate buying opportunity. So which companies are you holding during this war in Iran? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.