“Anytime there is a war there’s stock uncertainty. Money flowing out of the stocks because they don’t know what to expect.”
That’s how I described it in the video. My main article says the war was only the headline and the bond market was the real story. Here is the strongest honest case that I got it backwards.
“Take the news with a pinch of salt.” Unless the news is the cause.
In the video I said you have to take the news with a pinch of salt, because you don’t know what will happen next. Fair. But this time the news explains the bond market.
Start with oil. Brent began 2026 at about $61 a barrel. The war began on 28 February. On 9 September Brent closed at $101.21.
Expensive oil doesn’t stay at the petrol station. It goes into transport, food and almost everything else. US inflation was 3.4% over the twelve months to August. Gasoline alone rose 3.9% in August, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that was over a third of the month’s total price increase.
When inflation stays high, lenders ask for a higher interest rate and the central bank raises rates. That’s exactly what happened: the 10-year yield reached 5.00% on 15 September, and the Fed hiked on 16 September. The “boring” bond market didn’t move separately from the war. It moved because of it.
“Bonds and gold are the safe haven.” The professionals didn’t think so.
Fund flow data did show money leaving stock funds for bond funds in late August and early September. But those figures cover all fund investors, a lot of them ordinary savers.
Professional money managers told a different story. In Bank of America’s September fund manager survey, they still owned more stocks than normal, and their bond allocation was the lowest since May 2022. And in the week to 23 September, money flowed back into stock funds, according to the Investment Company Institute.
“The yield of return is very slow.” Not anymore.
In the video I said that most of us are not looking at bonds because the yield of return is very slow, but it is a very secure way of holding on to your money.
The second half is true. The first half no longer fits. On 30 September the US 10-year government bond yielded 5.29%. That’s a known return from the US government for ten years, without needing a single company to succeed.
Growth stocks need to beat that by a meaningful margin to be worth the extra risk. That bar is much higher than a few years ago.
“Don’t listen to the news.” Sometimes you should.
Investing at a fixed interval and ignoring headlines is a sound habit. But a war that pushes up energy prices, then inflation, then interest rates, changes what companies are worth. Ignoring it completely isn’t neutral. It’s a decision too.
A sharper approach would be to keep the monthly rhythm, but check whether the headline changes the numbers underneath your investments: interest rates, costs, profits.
The bottom line of this side
The war and the bond market aren’t two separate stories. One feeds the other. And with safe government bonds paying around 5%, the case for being almost fully in growth stocks is weaker than it looks.
Keep reading
- Gold Is Falling. Here’s What the Big Money Actually Did
- Who Pays for Your AI? Following the Money Down the AI Ladder
I’m not a financial adviser. This is my own investing journey, not financial advice. Any investment decision is your own.