Core Capital Partners’ Managing Director explains why the war involving Iran has crossed the line from regional tension into a market-moving event — and what investors should do about it
By Miller V
When geopolitical risk starts moving markets, most investors reach for the wrong framework. They ask how long the conflict will last. Kam Thindal, Managing Director of Core Capital Partners, says that’s the wrong question entirely.
“Geopolitics is the kind of risk that sits just outside the spreadsheet,” Thindal told me. “It’s difficult to model, easy to overreact to, and often discounted until it starts to change the inputs investors actually trade. The war involving Iran has crossed that line.”
In a matter of days, a regional conflict has begun to behave like a global macro variable. The reason, according to Thindal, comes down to one geographic chokepoint.
Kam Thindal on Why the Strait of Hormuz Changes Everything
The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly 20 million barrels per day of oil flows — approximately 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption — and serves as a critical route for liquefied natural gas shipments. When passage is impaired, Thindal explains, markets don’t just reprice oil. They simultaneously reprice the probability of higher inflation and slower growth.
“That corridor is literal,” says Thindal. “And when it’s threatened, the transmission runs straight into every portfolio in the world whether you think you have Middle East exposure or not.”
Recent reporting describes the Strait as effectively closed or severely constrained, with direct military confrontation affecting energy infrastructure and commercial shipping. Policymakers are discussing naval escorts and stabilization measures, but Thindal argues the uncertainty itself is already doing damage.
“Markets can digest bad news more easily than they can digest uncertainty,” he says. “When the odds of escalation are unclear, investors pay for optionality. They demand higher risk premia, reduce exposure to economically sensitive areas, and lean toward liquidity.”
What Kam Thindal Is Reading in the Market Signal
The initial market reaction has followed a classic risk-off pattern — though not a disorderly one. On March 3, U.S. equities pulled back close to 1% as the conflict intensified, alongside rising energy prices and renewed inflation concerns. Fund flows told a similar story: sizable inflows into money market funds, outflows from broad equity exposure, and renewed interest in natural resources as oil and gas prices moved higher.
Thindal calls this a return to “real asset” hedging behavior — and he’s been watching it closely from Core Capital Partners.
But he also flagged something else. On March 4, reports of Iranian outreach and renewed talk of negotiations helped steady risk assets almost immediately.
“That pivot is instructive,” Thindal notes. “Markets are trading the probability distribution, not the outcome that eventually prints. That’s the dynamic investors need to understand going into this.”
Kam Thindal’s Framework: Oil, Rates, and the Earnings Bridge
When I asked Thindal to walk through the transmission mechanism from conflict to equity markets, he was precise.
“The bridge from war to equities is not the conflict itself,” he explains. “It’s the price of energy, and what energy prices do to financial conditions. Higher oil and gas prices act like a tax on consumers and a cost shock for industry. They also seep into inflation data with a lag — and that matters because equity valuations remain sensitive to rate expectations.”
Oil has moved toward multi-month highs, with Brent trading in the low $80s per barrel in early March. UBS has raised its 2026 Brent forecasts and flagged that a prolonged disruption could push prices above $100. That tail risk, Thindal says, is where equity markets face their toughest test.
“A modest risk premium can be absorbed,” he says. “A sustained price spike can tighten financial conditions and pressure central banks — especially in an environment where inflation credibility is already a sensitive topic. For companies, the near-term impact tends to show up in margins first, and then in demand if consumers start to retrench.”
What History Tells Kam Thindal About Middle East Conflict and Markets
Thindal is careful not to let historical pattern-matching substitute for clear thinking, but he sees two historical episodes as genuinely instructive.
The 1973-74 oil embargo, in which crude prices quadrupled, and the 1978-79 Iranian revolution, in which oil prices more than doubled between April 1979 and April 1980, both demonstrate that energy disruptions don’t just raise input costs — they reshape inflation psychology and policy choices for years.
“The better historical question isn’t how markets perform during wars,” Thindal says. “It’s whether the conflict becomes an energy shock, and whether it changes policy. Those are the two variables that determine whether you’re looking at a short-term scare or a multi-year regime shift.”
He also points to research on the 2003 Iraq War run-up, which found U.S. equities were highly sensitive to changes in perceived war likelihood — reinforcing his point that markets trade probabilities, not outcomes.
What’s different today, Thindal notes, is that the global economy is less oil-intensive than it was in the 1970s, and supply outside the Middle East is more flexible over time. But the plumbing of global trade can still amplify stress in ways that aren’t immediately visible in commodity prices.
“Shipping insurance, rerouting, and port disruptions can translate into higher landed costs that look inflationary even if the underlying commodity spike fades,” he explains. “That’s the kind of second-order effect that doesn’t show up in the first week of headlines.”
Kam Thindal’s Short and Long-Term Investment Framework
When I pushed Thindal for his actual investment framework for navigating this environment, he broke it into two distinct timeframes.
In the short run, he says markets typically reprice around three questions: how durable the energy disruption is, how central banks respond to inflation pressure, and how quickly corporate earnings expectations adjust. Sector dispersion widens — investors rotate into energy, select defense, and certain commodities, and away from fuel-intensive or demand-sensitive areas like airlines, consumer discretionary, and select industrials.
“For investors trying to stay grounded, the most useful signals are market-based, not headline-based,” Thindal says. “The shape of the oil futures curve, inflation breakevens, credit spreads, and the cost of hedging volatility. If those indicators stabilize even while headlines remain tense, that’s a clue the market is starting to see a boundary around the worst-case scenarios.”
The long-run question, according to Thindal, is whether fundamental assumptions change. If Hormuz remains impaired for an extended period, energy security diversification accelerates — alternative supply routes, longer-term contracting, renewed urgency around domestic production. If the conflict de-escalates quickly, indices can revert to fundamentals faster than the news cycle suggests.
“The difference between a short-term scare and a regime shift is rarely visible in the headlines,” Thindal says. “It shows up in whether oil stays high, whether shipping normalizes, and whether central banks feel boxed in. Watch those three things, not the news ticker.”
Kam Thindal’s Closing Advice for Investors
For Thindal, the practical takeaway from this moment isn’t a specific trade. It’s a process.
“In periods like this, investors don’t need perfect forecasts,” he says. “They need a clear map of exposures, a disciplined process, and enough liquidity to avoid being forced into decisions by volatility. The investors who get hurt in geopolitical events are usually the ones who were already stretched when the shock arrived.”
His read on the current situation is cautious but not catastrophic. The early market reaction suggests caution rather than capitulation, and history supports the idea that equities are often more resilient once uncertainty starts to resolve. But history also warns that when Middle East conflict becomes a genuine energy shock, it can leave a longer imprint than investors expect in the first week.
“At Core Capital Partners, we’re watching this carefully,” Thindal concludes. “The transmission channels run straight into the global macro system. How you’re positioned in the next 90 days will matter more than most people think.”
Kam Thindal is Managing Director of Core Capital Partners, a Vancouver-based investment firm focused on early-stage technology, resource, and infrastructure opportunities. This analysis reflects Thindal’s views as of March 2026. Connect with Kam Thindal on LinkedIn or visit ccpartnersinc.com.
