Opinion

Meer dan tien jaar schrijf ik al stukjes voor beleggers, economen en iedereen die maar enige interesse heeft in de financiële markten. Vooral extreem negatieve verhalen, verhalen over de waan van de dag of verhalen met een overdreven titel doen het goed. Hoewel ik zo nu en dan in categorie één wordt gestopt, ben ik meestal niet zo goed in zulke verhalen. Maar vandaag heb ik een onderwerp dat elke dag bovenaan de hitlijsten staat: Artificial Intelligence.

While the whole world was watching the Serena Hotel in Islamabad, where the ceasefire negotiations on Iran were taking place, the real news last week unfolded 6,000 kilometers away.

I have been watching the financial markets with some amazement for the past few weeks. A US president threatening the eradication of an entire society, while equity markets remain largely unchanged. Then a fresh TACO triggers a recovery rally of several percent, even though there is nothing more than a two-week ceasefire and ongoing uncertainty. For anyone looking even slightly ahead, a clear bump appears that we will all have to get over.

The world was already electrifying at a rapid pace. But two developments are now pushing this process into an acceleration that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago.

The war against Iran has now lasted a month, and the consequences are becoming visible at a rapid pace. The conflict began as an American-Israeli operation targeting Iran’s nuclear program and the regime in Tehran. But while the United States and Israel are dropping bombs, Europe is absorbing the heaviest economic blows. The result of decades of failed European energy policy, strategic dependency, and a lack of geopolitical power.

If there is one thing that characterizes the investment world, it is that it is full of clichés, parrots, and an enormous reluctance to change. It is sometimes laughable how market experts produce the same one-liners for twenty years or bury you under their “market wisdom.”

Faithful readers of this column know that I am deeply concerned about the politicization of the European Central Bank (ECB). Lessons from monetary history and piles of academic research support that concern: we simply know that a central bank that listens to what politicians want is bad news for inflation in the medium term.

As geopolitical tensions rise, capital is quietly repositioning. Luxembourg is emerging as a European anchor for globally minded family offices, with Singapore reinforcing the shift from the Asian side.

Necessity breaks laws, but it also breaks existing patterns, paradigms, and drives innovation. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention. Not abundance or curiosity, but circumstances in which delay is not an option.

Imagine this: you predict stock returns for January 2026 using company data from all of 2026. Data that only becomes available during that year (or even afterward). Sounds absurd? Yet this is exactly the methodological foundation of one of the most cited findings in climate finance: the carbon premium.