Markets are just getting this wrong. If it continues, then it will have huge consequences for the

global economy and for the UK. Although we've got to hope that the view of markets that this could

lead to some kind of stability relatively quickly is correct, there are enormous catastrophic risks

around that.

Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Money with me, Robert Pestan.

And with me, Steph McGovern.

Now, the unrest in the Middle East continues to play havoc.

We want to look today at the latest on what that means in terms of the global economy,

what's happening with the stock markets, how are investors reacting to this.

And in turn, how that impacts the forecasts we've had this week in terms of what is going on here in the UK. Robert, just kick us off on where things are at the minute then.

So I was really struck by a data point that quite an influential investment manager sent me this morning.

And it is that in the futures market, the price of oil for delivery in December is only up

3% this week, right?

Which basically says that investors believe that there will be a relatively stable end to this conflict in terms of shipments of oil and presumably potentially of gas as

as well. And that stability will come sooner than, you know, many people think. And so I thought

that what we should at least start by doing is look at whether that kind of relative

optimism is well founded or whether, which is often the case, markets are just getting this

wrong and getting it wrong in particular because there are some really big uncertainties out

there. So just talk us through

Steph what has been happening to oil and gas production facilities in the Middle East, what's

been happening to that extraordinarily important shipping lane, the Straits of Hummus in the last,

you know, since we did our last episode at the beginning of the week.

...