By Jeff Powell, CEO
Elevage Partners | March 2, 2026
By now you’ve seen the headlines. Over the weekend, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran. The situation is evolving by the hour, and we wanted to write directly rather than let you wonder where things stand.
Before we get to portfolio implications: moments like this carry a human weight that deserves acknowledgment. The uncertainty is real, and we don’t want to skip past that.
That said, right now especially, our job is to help you think clearly when the world feels unclear. So here’s how we’re looking at it.
What This Means for Markets
The honest answer is that nobody knows exactly how this unfolds from here — not us, not the major banks, not the analysts on television. What we can do is be clear about how our framework is positioned for this kind of environment, and what we’re watching.
How We’re Positioned
Every portfolio we manage is built around your specific goals, risk tolerance and timeline, so your positioning will reflect your plan, not a one-size-fits-all model. If you’re wondering “how does this affect ME specifically,” here’s the framework we’re using to think through it.
Our investment framework wasn’t built around a bet on any political outcome. It was built around durable economic forces that persist across administrations, conflict and headlines. Two themes within that framework are particularly relevant to the current moment.
Our government spending theme includes defense companies that have been core to our positioning for exactly this reason: defense spending is structural, not cyclical. A weekend like this one reinforces rather than changes that reality.
Our artificial intelligence and infrastructure theme includes energy companies we positioned around the power demands of AI data centers. Those same companies are direct beneficiaries of elevated energy prices, the near-term market reality in a Middle East conflict. The original thesis and the current environment are pointing in the same direction. We’re watching valuations on both groups closely as prices move.
What We’re Not Doing
We’re not making wholesale portfolio changes based on a weekend of news, however significant. That’s not indifference. It’s discipline built on 30 years of experience through the Gulf War, 9/11, and Iraq.
Geopolitical shocks move markets fast. That speed creates pressure to act. In my experience, having worked through the Gulf War, 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, the investors who responded in the first 48 to 72 hours of a crisis were almost never the ones who came out ahead. They were reacting to fear, not to their plan. The situation in the Middle East is serious and fluid. What it isn’t, at least not yet, is evidence that the long-term economic forces behind our positioning have changed.
What We’re Watching
A few things would genuinely shift our assessment: a sustained disruption to global energy supply beyond what’s already being priced in; a meaningful reversal in defense spending commitments from allied governments (the opposite seems more likely right now); or broader contagion that materially changes the earnings trajectory of our core holdings.
If any of those shift, we’ll act. We’ll tell you when we do and explain why.
What Hasn’t Changed
Your goals didn’t change over the weekend. Retirement, legacy, financial security — those didn’t move when the headlines moved. “Investing for Your WHY®” means exactly this: your portfolio is built around what you’re actually trying to accomplish, not around what happened on any given Saturday.
A conflict in the Middle East doesn’t move your retirement date. It doesn’t change what you want to leave your kids or how you want to live the next chapter. The plan we built together was designed for moments like this. When the news gets loud, you have something solid underneath you.
If you want to talk through how any of this applies to your specific situation, email us at info@elevagepartners.com. We’re here.