The DAX opened flatter on Friday. Around 9:30 a.m. it was last traded at roughly 23,315 points – 1.2 % below the previous day’s close.
Consorsbank’s chief market analyst Jochen Stanzl warned that the Iran conflict, now approaching its second week, is increasingly affecting Germany’s inflation, growth and valuations.
“An immediate solution appears out of reach, and neither is a swift reopening of shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz. Global crude inventories – both commercial and strategic – are shrinking rapidly, narrowing the room for further shocks” he said.
Stanzl added that the longer the strait remains blocked, the more sensitive oil prices will become. Should the channel stay closed, he cautions that a price rise above $120 a barrel could prove unstoppable. “The market’s buffers are eroding; in the climax of the crisis the only way forward may be to push the backlog of oil through the passage, even under the risk of an Iranian missile strike”.
He characterised the uncertainty in the Hormuz corridor as the first casualty of the war, noting that it is unclear whether mines are laid there or not. Sources differ, leaving investors navigating murk. Only one fact persists: oil tankers go up in flames, and the Persian Gulf will once again yield nothing-in oil, LNG, helium, fertilizer or any other commodity that underpins the world economy. It appears a passage through Hormuz will be attempted – armed and in a hot zone – with no signs of de‑escalation.
Stanzl highlighted how the closure’s repercussions are becoming increasingly visible day by day. Helium supply illustrates this: Qatar, which supplies roughly 40 % of the world’s helium, cannot deliver. Helium is essential in Taiwan and South Korea for cooling lithography machines that produce high‑end chips. No substitute exists. Current stocks should last about three months. North America, though it produces nearly half of global helium, cannot provide it without risking its own shortages. A helium outage would halt chip production, drive prices up, and stall the billion‑dollar expansion of AI data centres.
Taiwan, like Germany, has shut all nuclear power plants. The island now relies on gas‑powered plants for base load generation and had contracts with Qatar for deliveries that are now void. Consequently, Taiwan must turn to the spot market, as Europe and other Asian countries do, leading to higher prices and potential delivery delays. With only ten or eleven days of LNG storage, this presents a serious problem.
Taiwan hosts TSMC, one of the world’s most important chipmakers. When the island cuts gas to save LNG, its electricity grid’s risk buffer falls to a critical level. Voltage fluctuations or blackouts could trigger TSMC’s lithography machines to shut down within milliseconds, risking millions of dollars in damages. Due to the global interdependence of supply chains, a prolonged Iran war not only harms developing economies but also threatens developed economies whose supply chains may soon become vulnerable, Stanzl concluded.
On Friday morning the euro weakened: one euro = 1.1438 U.S. dollars, and one U.S. dollar = 0.8743 euros. Gold also fell, trading at $5,068 per fine ounce – a 0.5 % drop – which translates to 142.45 euros per gram. Meanwhile Brent crude rose sharply, priced at $102.10 per barrel at about 9:00 a.m. German time, up 1.7 % from the previous day’s close.
