AnBro Q2 2026 Update: Chaos and Consequences

What a ride 2026 continues to be, nobody can accuse us of living in a boring world, especially with so many narratives fighting for airtime concurrently. Depending on your point of focus you’d have the ongoing issues in the middle east pulling against the AI trade which also might side track you away from the UK losing another Prime Minister and the changes at the head of the Federal reserve! Surging global protectionism, sovereign debt strain and the US midterms due later this year will keep us engaged.

Thankfully, on the geopolitical front things have reached a semblance of calm, for the time being anyway. The war in Iran seems to be over. Most parties look keen on moving on from here. Cynics the world over will ask what was accomplished by all of this, and on the surface anyway I’d have to agree with those suggesting very little. Roughly 125 days into the conflict we have an ‘MOU’ but no deal yet. Oil prices have almost roundtripped their move back down, Iran still refuses to give up its Uranium and all we have is what seems like a lot of regional damage and global economic chaos, the consequences of which are still being felt in varying ways. Some countries have had to scramble to make sure they can keep the ‘lights on’, others have warned about fertilizer shortages which may impact crops (el Nino’s not helping either), relationships between allies have been strained and of course supply chain strain and bottle necks have increased the cost of almost everything.

Inflation and stagflation fears have re-emerged which has had a profound impact on the outlook for interest rates. In some cases, cuts or the hope of them have flipped to actual rate increases (South Africa and the Eurozone) whilst the tone has shifted materially in others (USA, UK, Canada and Australia). With oil shifting lower perhaps inflation anxiety will ease but we need to see oil flowing and infrastructure being repaired to be comfortable it sticks.

I’ve always tried to steer away from politics; it sits in the ‘too hard’ basket for me. It’s one of the only areas I’ve ever come across where logic and sanity cross paths and somehow the result seems to be illogical and insane. So, for the sake of our own mental wellbeing, we won’t spend too much time on the UK other than mentioning what seems to be a clear trend (globally) that people are becoming increasingly frustrated with how things are being done and the way they are being managed. It’s certainly something we need to keep an eye on, especially in the US where a high stakes game has been played ahead of Midterms due to take place on the 3rd of November. We can expect a lot of jawboning and some volatility as we get closer to the event.

From a market’s perspective, it’s been another strange year so far. Once again, on the surface, we’re at a place of relative calm, indices around the world have steadied and, overall, look a lot better now than earlier in year. Underneath the surface it’s another story. Emerging markets as a basket have risen sharply but, in most part, because of a massive rally in South Korea and Taiwan (and specifically, due to just a handful of shares, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Taiwan Semi). China, India and SA on the other hand have lagged. This is the AI trade in full force.