Global equity markets whipsawed over the past several days as Tehran opened the Strait of Hormuz to shipping on Friday, then shut it again the next day. Stocks that had surged on ceasefire optimism reversed hard on Monday, and analysts are warning that investors are dangerously complacent about what comes next.

Wall Street is treating the Iran conflict like a tariff negotiation: assume the worst is priced in, buy the dip, and trust that cooler heads will prevail. Several prominent strategists say that framework is wrong, and the Strait of Hormuz’s on-again, off-again closure is the proof.

The pattern is becoming familiar. The S&P 500 gained 4.5% last week. The Nasdaq Composite popped 6.8% and posted its 13th consecutive winning session on Friday, a streak not seen since 1992. Much of that rally rode on optimism that a two-week ceasefire agreed between the U.S. and Iran on April 7 would hold, and that the strait, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply passes, would stay open.

Then Iran reversed course. By Monday, traffic through the strait had ground to a halt again, and global equities faltered. The jubilation lasted barely a weekend.

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The “Liberation Day” Playbook Doesn’t Apply Here

Matt Gertken, chief geopolitical strategist at BCA Research, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday that investors are making a category error. They have adapted to the rhythm of trade-war brinkmanship and are applying the same logic to a shooting war in the Gulf.

“The market is believing this is like ‘liberation day’, that President Trump can raise the temperature but then lower the temperature at the perfect time, and that he’s the maestro. But we could be in a different situation now, because Iran has been attacked, and they have a higher pain threshold.”

That distinction matters. Tariff escalations have a built-in de-escalation mechanism: both sides lose money, and the political cost of sustained pain creates incentives to deal. A military conflict in the Persian Gulf operates on different logic. Iran’s pain threshold, as Gertken put it, is higher precisely because the stakes are existential rather than transactional. One of the White House’s key war aims, according to the same reporting, is securing guarantees on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. That is not the kind of objective that lends itself to a quick handshake.

For metals investors, the distinction between a trade spat and a hot war over energy chokepoints is not academic. It is the difference between a temporary risk-off bid and a sustained repricing of supply chains, energy costs, and inflation expectations. As strategists have warned, a prolonged oil shock through the strait could trigger market dislocations on a scale not seen since the pandemic.

Orbis and Deutsche Bank Sound the Same Alarm

Patrick O’Donnell, chief investment strategist at Orbis, echoed the concern in a separate CNBC appearance Monday. His framing was blunt.

“It’s pretty clear to us that equity markets are viewing things with a ‘glass half full’ view. What we’re focused on is whether the Strait of Hormuz is actually going to reopen again.”

O’Donnell warned that continued disruption to energy flows through the strait could have “quite a long-lasting effect” and that uninterrupted passage is a prerequisite for any sustained stock market recovery. That framing puts the entire equity rally of the past week on shaky footing. If the strait stays closed, the rally’s foundation disappears.

Jim Reid, head of macro research at Deutsche Bank, urged caution in a note the same day. He drew a pointed comparison to the early weeks of the war in Ukraine in 2022, when the S&P 500 rallied more than 10% even as the conflict intensified. That bounce, Reid noted, left investors who chased it “uncomfortable” and ultimately “disappointed.” The S&P 500 went on to fall roughly 25% from its January 2022 peak to its October trough, finishing the year down 19% in its worst showing since 2008.

“That episode is a clear warning sign.”

The parallel is imperfect but instructive. In 2022, markets initially treated a European land war as a containable shock, then spent the rest of the year repricing energy, inflation, and interest-rate expectations. The risk now is that investors are making the same bet on containment with a conflict that directly threatens the world’s most critical energy bottleneck.

The Ceasefire Clock Is Ticking

The fragile two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, agreed on April 7, is set to expire on Tuesday. That timeline concentrates risk. If the ceasefire lapses without extension, the strait’s status becomes even more uncertain, and the market’s “glass half full” posture will be tested immediately.

Gertken was explicit about the time horizon that matters. He told CNBC that over a 12-month period, investors should be treating the crisis seriously and should not be complacent. That is not a call to panic. It is a call to stop assuming that every escalation will be followed by a neat de-escalation on a politically convenient schedule.

The IMF has already slashed its global growth forecast in response to the conflict, warning that a prolonged disruption could tip the world into recession. That backdrop makes the equity market’s recent exuberance look less like informed optimism and more like muscle memory from a different kind of crisis.

What This Means for Gold and Hard Assets

The metals market reads this situation differently than equities do, and for good reason. Gold functions as a monetary asset and a store of value precisely when the assumptions baked into risk assets start to crack. A world in which the Strait of Hormuz opens and closes on 24-hour notice is a world where energy prices, inflation expectations, and central bank policy paths are all unstable.

If the strait remains contested, the inflationary impulse from energy costs alone could reshape the rate outlook. As the Fed’s Goolsbee has warned, war-driven inflation could push rate cuts well into the future, creating a policy environment where real yields stay elevated and credit stress builds beneath the surface. That kind of regime is historically supportive of physical gold, even when nominal rates are high, because the underlying uncertainty about purchasing power and system stability grows.

The speed with which Wall Street rushed to bet on a tech rebound after the ceasefire announcement tells its own story. The equity market’s instinct is to front-run the resolution. The metals market’s instinct is to price the risk that the resolution doesn’t come.

The 2022 Parallel Cuts Both Ways

Reid’s Ukraine comparison deserves a closer look from the hard-asset perspective. In 2022, the initial equity rally during the early weeks of the war coincided with a strong move in gold. But as the Fed tightened aggressively to fight the resulting inflation, gold gave back ground while equities fell harder. The lesson is not that gold always wins in wartime. The lesson is that the second-order effects of a major geopolitical shock, especially through the energy channel, tend to be larger and longer-lasting than markets initially price.

This time, the energy channel is more direct. The Strait of Hormuz is not an abstract supply-chain risk. It is a physical chokepoint that, when closed, immediately reprices a fifth of global oil and LNG supply. The knock-on effects on inflation, trade balances, and central bank flexibility are not theoretical. They are mechanical.

For investors focused on capital preservation, the question is not whether the ceasefire will hold on Tuesday. It is whether the market’s current pricing reflects the full range of outcomes, or only the most convenient one. The analyst consensus from BCA, Orbis, and Deutsche Bank suggests the latter.

Readers weighing their exposure to metals and miners in this environment may also want to consider how even cautious Wall Street calls on gold have been overtaken by events in recent months. The macro case for hard assets has a way of strengthening fastest when the consensus is looking elsewhere.

The Real Risk Is Complacency, Not Panic

None of the analysts quoted in this reporting are calling for a market crash. They are calling for seriousness. The distinction matters. Gertken’s point about a 12-month horizon, O’Donnell’s focus on the physical status of the strait, and Reid’s historical parallel all point in the same direction: the market is pricing a best-case outcome with near-certainty, and the range of worse outcomes is wide.

Gold and silver do not need a catastrophe to perform well. They need uncertainty. And right now, the gap between what equity markets are pricing and what the geopolitical facts on the ground support is wide enough to drive a tanker through.

When the strait opens and closes on a politician’s whim, the market is not pricing risk. It is ignoring it. That is exactly the environment where owning something that does not depend on a ceasefire holding tends to matter most.