An update on the latest news, insights, and market views shaping global wealth management and investment trends.

Weekly Snapshot

This section highlights weekly performance, notable volatility, and significant currency moves shaping investor sentiment.

• In the week Taco was all over the menu and Tehran refused to order,  the S&P is down -1.9% and the Nasdaq is down -3.0% Europe was up 0.1% The Nikkei was flat China’s mainland market was down -1.4%
• President Trump's 48-hour ultimatum to Iran was issued, suspended, and then extended again,  with each Truth Social post moving futures by several percentage points in either direction
• Brent crude opened the week above $110 per barrel. Despite dramatic intraweek swings, falling sharply on Monday's de-escalation, then recovering as ceasefire optimism faded,  it closed Friday near where it began. The IEA warned this week that the world is facing its worst energy crisis in decades, as the Hormuz blockade continues to disrupt
• Conflicting signals on the Iran ceasefire kept upward pressure on US Treasury yields throughout the week. The benchmark 10-year note rose by more than 10 basis points, touching an intraday high of 4.48% on Friday before settling at 4.42%. Still,  it remains the highest we have seen since the summer of 25’. The 2-year note climbed sharply toward 4%, driven by a reassessment of the Fed's path amid persistent inflation fears linked to elevated energy prices. The move up in yields was compounded by two disappointing Treasury auctions
• On Monday, gold briefly slipped into negative territory for the year, marking its ninth consecutive day of declines. It now trades at  $4’527 flat on the week, but roughly 20% below its late-January highs. Silver at $70.5 has followed even more aggressively, down over 40% from its early winter peak. This sharp, synchronized sell-off, points to concern among investors who appear to be positioning for a prolonged and costly conflict in the Persian Gulf, one that could materially reset expectations for growth, inflation, and corporate earnings across major markets
• Digital assets mirrored the broader risk tone. Mid-week, Bitcoin climbed to around $72’000 while Ethereum reached $2’233. By Thursday, however, as oil rebounded and equities softened, crypto shifted back into selling mode, by Friday, Bitcoin had fallen below $70’000 and Ethereum slipped under $2’000
• The US dollar firmed against most major currencies as oil prices remained elevated and ceasefire scepticism resurfaced. On Friday, the euro was down 0.35% at $1.1525, sterling lost 0.45% to $1.3280, and the dollar gained 0.56% against the yen to ¥160.13

Geopolitical Landscape

A summary of key political and geopolitical developments during the week that may influence global markets and impact portfolio positioning.

• The week's defining sequence began on Saturday, when President Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum: reopen the Strait of Hormuz in full or face US strikes on Iranian power plants. Tehran responded by warning it would target energy and desalination infrastructure across Gulf states and threatened to mine the entire Persian Gulf. On Monday, Trump announced a five-day suspension of his threat, citing ‘very good and productive conversations’ with Iran. Iranian officials categorically denied any direct talks had taken place, with Foreign Minister Araghchi suggesting Trump's statements were designed to reassure markets rather than reflect diplomatic reality
• A 15-point US peace proposal, transmitted to Tehran via Pakistan as intermediary, was reportedly under review, though Iran signalled it would reject any agreement that did not fully meet its conditions. On Thursday, Trump extended the pause for a further ten days, setting a new deadline of April 6, reportedly at Tehran's request
• Against this backdrop, Israel confirmed on Thursday the killing of Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Iranian Navy, in a strike on the port city of Bandar Abbas. Tangsiri had led Iran's effort to close the Strait of Hormuz to hostile shipping traffic since the outbreak of hostilities on February 28. Israel confirmed that the strike also killed the Navy's intelligence chief and other senior naval officers. The US Central Command confirmed the death and noted that 92% of the Iranian Navy's larger vessels have now been eliminated since the start of Operation Epic Fury
• NATO's 2025 annual report, published on Thursday, confirmed that European members and Canada invested $574bn in defence last year,  a 20% real-terms increase versus 2024, and that for the first time since the target was set in 2014, all 32 member states met the 2% of GDP benchmark. Secretary General Rutte signalled that allies should now set their sights on 5% by 2035
• The EU signed a landmark trade agreement with Australia this week, granting Europe preferential access to critical raw materials including lithium, manganese, and aluminium, resources considered essential for the bloc's green and digital transitions. The deal represents one of the most strategically significant trade accords concluded by Brussels in recent years

Macroeconomic Developments

Key macroeconomic data releases and economic indicators across major regions and individual countries, providing insight into growth trends, and the broader economic outlook.

• US import prices for February 2026 (pre-conflict) rose 1.3% month-on-month, well above consensus of +0.6%, while export prices surged 1.5% against an expected 0.3%. Markets now expect Federal Reserve policy to remain on hold through year-end, with CME FedWatch assigning a 72% probability to an unchanged rate and a 23% probability to a 25-basis-point hike. Even Stephen Miran, typically a proponent of lower rates, has revised his rate outlook upward by half a percentage point in response to recent inflation data, while still arguing that the Fed’s policy stance is overly restrictive given underlying growth dynamics
• The OECD revised its global growth forecasts modestly lower in its latest update, projecting a slowdown from 3.3% in 2025 to 2.9% in 2026, before a partial recovery to 3.0% in 2027. The deceleration is attributed to surging energy prices and conflict-related uncertainty, partially offsetting the positive contributions of elevated technology investment, lower effective tariff rates, and carry-over momentum from last year
• Speaking at the ECB and Its Watchers conference in Frankfurt on Wednesday, ECB President Christine Lagarde struck a carefully calibrated tone. Describing the energy shock from the Iran conflict as a ‘real shock’ facing the global economy, she nonetheless insisted the ECB was well positioned to respond, noting that the current backdrop,  with inflation close to its 2% target and the eurozone on a sounder footing than in 2022, was more ‘benign’ than when Russia throttled gas supplies after its Ukraine invasion. The ECB held its deposit rate at 2.0% at its latest meeting, but Lagarde opened the door to hikes if the pass-through from energy prices proves broader or more persistent than currently assumed: ‘We will not be paralysed by hesitation,’ she said. ‘Our commitment to delivering 2% inflation over the medium term is unconditional.’ Markets have since begun pricing a meaningful probability of an ECB rate increase as early as next month

Corporate & Sector Highlights

Insights into notable developments among major global companies and sectors, including earnings results, strategic initiatives, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory developments, and trends influencing corporate performance.

• Google Research unveiled TurboQuant, a compression algorithm capable of reducing the memory required during AI inference by a factor of at least six, with no measurable loss in model accuracy. The announcement triggered broad declines across memory manufacturers, Micron and SanDisk fell Wednesday, with SK Hynix and Kioxia dropping 6% and nearly 6% respectively on Thursday, as investors questioned the medium-term demand trajectory for high-bandwidth memory. Analysts were divided, with many arguing the sell-off was overdone given that TurboQuant targets inference memory only, leaving AI training demand,  still the primary driver of capital expenditure, entirely unaffected.
• Arm shares surged 16% on Wednesday after unveiling its first-ever in-house chip. The AGI CPU, which is designed specifically for AI inference in data centers, with Meta as lead partner and co-developer,  marks a fundamental shift in Arm's business model, from licensing intellectual property to competing directly in production silicon. CEO Rene Haas projected the chip would generate $15bn in revenue by 2031, with total group revenue reaching $25bn (six times the $4bn Arm recorded in 2025). The move positions Arm as a direct structural beneficiary of the agentic AI wave , and, perhaps counterintuitively, as a relative safe haven in a semiconductor sector rattled by the TurboQuant-driven memory sell-off elsewhere in the week
• TotalEnergies signed settlement agreements with the US on Monday to relinquish its two remaining US offshore wind leases, recovering approximately $1bn in lease fees in the process. The capital will be reinvested into US oil and gas production. CEO Patrick Pouyanné said the company had concluded that offshore wind in the United States was too costly and risked undermining power affordability for consumers, and that other technologies were better placed to meet growing electricity demand. On the broader energy picture, Pouyanné told CNBC the world had ‘never experienced’ refining margins at their current levels. With roughly 15% of TotalEnergies' own production offline as a result of the conflict, soaring oil prices have more than offset the lost barrels,  but Pouyanné cautioned that European natural gas, currently trading around $18 per million BTU, could spike to $40 if the war persists into the summer
• Revolut reported its 2025 annual results on Tuesday: net profit rose 65% to £1.3bn, while revenue climbed 46% to £4.5bn from £3.1bn the prior year. The company filed formally for a US national banking licence in March and reiterated its ambition to reach 100 million customers by mid-2027
• Shares of Puig surged as much as 15% on Tuesday after Estée Lauder confirmed it is in discussions regarding a potential merger with the Spanish beauty group, owner of Charlotte Tilbury, among others. Estée Lauder noted that no final decision had been made. The combination would create a beauty and fragrance powerhouse with an estimated enterprise value in excess of $40bn. Estée Lauder shares fell sharply on the news

Chart of the Week

The Other Energy Crisis

The Chart below tracks Nvidia GPU rental costs per hour on the Silicon Data Index . It tells a story of a market in the middle of a profound generational transition. The B200 (Blackwell), Nvidia's current flagship, has been on a wild ride: it spiked to over $7/hr at launch in early 2025 as hyperscalers scrambled to secure the most powerful inference hardware available, before falling sharply as supply caught up with initial demand and settling into the $4.50–5.00 range through mid-2025. The renewed spike to $6/hr in March 2026 is telling, it coincides directly with the outbreak of the Iran war and the broader energy infrastructure shock. The conflict has lent new urgency to sovereign AI programmes and data center build-out across Europe and the Gulf, as governments accelerate efforts to reduce strategic dependencies on foreign-controlled compute infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the older generations tell a quieter but equally important story. The H100 (Hopper), which dominated AI workloads through 2024, has seen its rental price grind from $3/hr down toward $2/hr and only partially recover, a sign that the market is pricing in its obsolescence even as demand for AI compute overall remains robust. The A100 (Ampere) has been in steady, gentle decline throughout, now trading below $1.50/hr.

Google's TurboQuant announcement this week adds an interesting dimension. If each GPU can now handle six times the workload for the same memory cost, does that mean we need fewer chips, or does cheaper AI simply unlock more applications and drive demand even higher? History points firmly to the latter: every time computing got cheaper, the world found more things to do with it. But the sharp sell-off in memory stocks this week suggests investors are not yet convinced

Source: BCA Research