The AI Iran Rollercoaster 1Q 2026

ACR argues that investors should ignore short-term geopolitical and style-market swings, while reassessing energy holdings through normalized long-term commodity prices and treating AI valuations and disruption fears company by company.

• Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, 2026, and was followed by a fragile ceasefire, a contested closure of the Strait of Hormuz, higher energy prices and falling stock markets in March; equities rebounded in April while energy remained volatile.
• ACR believes the consumption shock and damage to consumer-cyclical holdings will be short-lived and immaterial to valuations, and that a recession is unlikely unless the conflict persists and escalates.
• Energy producers are valued using long-term commodity assumptions anchored to marginal production costs at normalized demand; temporary profit changes are incorporated gradually through dividends and share retirements rather than extrapolated indefinitely.
• AI private-market valuations have reached $852 billion for OpenAI, about $800 billion for Anthropic and more than $1.5 trillion as a reported IPO target for the combined SpaceX and xAI, alongside multi-trillion-dollar valuations for Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia.
• SaaS and information-processing stocks are declining on AI-disruption fears, although ACR thinks many may ultimately benefit from large language models; it has not yet found enough valuation support and is reviewing opportunities one company and market at a time.

Takeaway: Investors should avoid trading war headlines or the renewed tech-versus-value rotation, maintain long-term valuation discipline in energy, and investigate AI beneficiaries and potential disruptors individually because many highly valued companies will disappoint but the eventual winners are difficult to identify.