I am writing this column on the last day of March 2026, and the US stock market is doing something it has done almost every day this month — swinging sharply in one direction on a rumour, then reversing on the next headline.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up roughly 1.8%, the S&P 500 had gained 2.3%, and the Nasdaq had climbed 3.2% — all because reports emerged that President Donald Trump had told aides he was willing to end the US military campaign against Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed.
By the time you read this, that situation may have changed again.
That volatility is precisely my point. The S&P 500 is on course for its worst monthly performance since September 2022, down more than 6% in March.
The Nasdaq remains in correction territory, more than 11% off its recent highs. The market that entered 2026 riding an artificial intelligence-fuelled wave of optimism has spent the past five weeks being battered by one of the most consequential geopolitical shocks in a generation.
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched joint military strikes on Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure. Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which approximately 20% of the world's seaborne oil and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas pass.
FromFebruary 28 to March27, Brent crude oil went from US$72.48 to US$112.57 — a 55% increase in less than four weeks. Oil is now trading around US$102–103 per barrel.
The ripple effects have been global and rapid. Wall Street's fear gauge — the VIX — topped 30 for much of the month, well above its historic average of 20.
Market breadth collapsed: by late March, fewer than 20% of S&P 500 stocks were trading above their 50-day moving averages, compared to more than 70% in January.
All of the so-called Magnificent Seven technology stocks — Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla — are meaningfully lower this year.
Microsoft has fallen the most at around 26%, while Apple has held up best at roughly 8% down.
The Asian stock exchanges have been the hardest hit globally. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 fell 11% from pre-conflict levels. India's Nifty50 fell 7%.
This reflects a straightforward economic reality: Asia is far more dependent on Middle Eastern energy than the United States is, and the disruption to Gulf oil and LNG flows hits Asian manufacturers and consumers with disproportionate force.
The macro consequences extend well beyond stock prices. The OECD's March 2026 interim economic outlook, published this month, projects global GDP growth of 2.9% in 2026 — lower than previously expected — and warns that G20 inflation is now on course to come in at 4.0% for the year, a full 1.2 percentage points higher than the pre-war forecast.
The organisation describes the situation as 'testing the resilience of the global economy,' noting that the halt in shipments through the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted both energy supply and key commodity flows including fertilisers.
That fertiliser dimension matters and is rarely discussed in the financial press.
Fertilisers are produced using urea and ammonia, and energy costs make up roughly 70% of production costs.
From the start of the conflict to late March, fertiliser prices increased by up to 40%, according to available data.
Analysts are warning that supply constraints coinciding with the Northern Hemisphere's spring planting season could lead to lower yields for staple crops including wheat, rice, and maize.
For food-importing economies, this is a second-order shock that compounds the oil price hit.
The International Energy Agency has described the situation caused by the war as 'the greatest global energy security challenge in history.'
Europe faces its own particular difficulty. Already dealing with sluggish economic momentum, the euro area is heavily dependent on Gulf energy — the ECB's March projections now anticipate euro area GDP growth of just 0.8% in 2026.
The US, buffered by domestic shale production, is in a more resilient position, but even there, gasoline prices have risen sharply, consumer confidence has softened, and the Federal Reserve's rate-cutting plans have been pushed back into the distance.
For Zimbabweans, this crisis is not a distant financial abstraction. Zimbabwe is among the countries identified as facing acute fuel supply disruptions as a result of the Strait of Hormuz closure.
That feeds directly into transport costs, agricultural input costs, and the informal economy that the majority of Zimbabweans depend on every day.
Every percentage point increase in global oil prices shows up in the cost of getting goods to market, running generators, and keeping basic services running.
The ZiG faces additional pressure from the global inflationary environment — a stronger US dollar and rising commodity prices reduce the real purchasing power of both reserves and remittances.
For the diaspora sending money home, the cost of living in Zimbabwe rises even as the nominal amounts sent remain the same.
For businesses that import goods or raw materials, the cost equation has shifted materially.
For Zimbabweans who invest in US markets through platforms such as EasyEquities, there is a more direct financial dimension.
The conflict has strengthened the US dollar relative to most emerging market currencies. Holding US dollar-denominated assets in US equities, even through this volatility, provides a degree of currency protection that would not be available by holding local currency.
This is not a reason to ignore downside risk — it is a reason to think clearly about why you hold what you hold, and to hold it with conviction rather than panic.
Here is the honest answer: I do not know. Neither does anyone else. And I would be extremely cautious about any analyst, social media personality, or investment 'guru' who tells you they do.
I have seen the analysis circulating among investors right now, and I understand the appeal of a clean framework that says: 'If war continues, buy energy. If peace comes, buy tech.'
That is not wrong as a starting point, but it is dangerously incomplete. Ceasefire negotiations rarely produce clean outcomes.
A 'cold peace' — where hostilities formally end but a structural risk premium remains embedded in oil prices and geopolitical uncertainty — is far more likely than a sudden return to pre-conflict conditions.
Markets may spike on ceasefire headlines and then give back half the gains within a week as the terms of any deal are scrutinised.
What I can tell you with conviction is this: the investors who perform best through events like this are not the ones who correctly predict what happens.
They are the ones who go into the event with a clear framework, a meaningful cash reserve to deploy into weakness, and the discipline not to panic-sell when the market moves against them.
Every major geopolitical shock in modern market history — the 1973 oil embargo, the Gulf War of 1991, the September 11 attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, Covid-19 — was followed eventually by a full market recovery.
The investors who held diversified, quality positions through those events and continued to invest systematically came out substantially ahead.
The ones who sold at the bottom locked in permanent losses. Nobody rings a bell at the bottom. It never feels safe to buy when the headlines are at their worst. That is precisely why the returns are there.
I am not going to use this column to tell you which specific stocks to buy or sell — that is not what a newspaper column is for, and any advice that simple would be irresponsible given the genuine uncertainty of the current moment.
What I can offer is three foundational principles that I believe apply regardless of how the conflict evolves.
If you are fully invested going into a potential escalation, you have no room to act when the opportunity presents itself.
A cash reserve of 20–30% of your total investable capital gives you optionality — the ability to buy quality assets at lower prices if markets fall further — and the psychological stability to avoid panic-selling what you already own. In the current interest rate environment, US dollar cash earning 4–5% in a money market fund is not dead weight. It is earning a real return while you wait for clarity.
Broad index funds — the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100 — give you exposure to the US market's recovery across any resolution scenario without requiring you to predict which sector wins.
These instruments already contain energy, defence, and technology at market-appropriate weights. They capture the war winners and the peace winners simultaneously.
Individual stock positions should be sized modestly and held only where you have genuine conviction, not simply because a name has fallen from its peak.
The market moved more than 1% in both directions on multiple days this month, driven entirely by rumour and counter-rumour about peace talks.
Your long-term return will not be determined by whether you sold on Monday and bought back on Tuesday.
It will be determined by the quality of your allocation decisions and your discipline to hold through volatility.
The investors who check their portfolios ten times a day during a crisis are the ones most likely to make decisions they later regret.
Markets cannot make up their mind right now because the situation genuinely is uncertain. Diplomatic signals shift daily.
Oil prices respond to rumour as much as to reality. The Federal Reserve is watching and waiting.
Global institutions from the OECD to the IMF have all revised their forecasts with the caveat that everything depends on how long this conflict lasts and how it resolves — variables that no model can predict with confidence.
That is not a counsel of despair. It is a call for intellectual honesty and investment discipline.
Accept that you cannot know what happens next. Build a portfolio that can survive the downside and participate in the upside across multiple scenarios.
Hold cash for optionality. Invest systematically on weakness. And resist the temptation to let the loudest voices in the room — whether they are the bulls or the bears — substitute their conviction for your own thinking.
The world's great investors — Buffett, Lynch, Templeton — did not build their records by calling geopolitical turning points. They built them by maintaining discipline when others lost theirs. That lesson is as relevant in Harare and Bulawayo as it is on Wall Street.