Here’s the thing about market risks in 2026: they’re not lining up politely to take turns. Instead, you’ve got two big, gnarly sources of uncertainty—escalating conflict in the Middle East and growing stress in the private credit industry—that seem to be on a collision course.
On the surface, they look like separate problems. One is about oil, geopolitics, and global supply chains. The other is about financial market plumbing—the kind of stuff that makes bankers and asset managers sweat. But the real worry isn't that we have two problems. It's that they might start talking to each other, and not in a good way.
Economist Mohamed El-Erian has been pointing this out. The key issue, he argues, is how multiple shocks can compound rather than offset one another. "In the real economy and finance, the negative factors do not net out; they compound," he wrote recently. In other words, don't assume geopolitical stress and financial stress will stay in their own lanes. They might just decide to carpool.
The Private Credit Pressure Cooker
Let's talk about private credit first. This is the sector that grew like a weed over the past decade, stepping in to lend where banks pulled back after 2008. It's built on a simple, but potentially fragile, model: making illiquid loans to companies, funded by investor capital that expects to be able to get its money back periodically.
The vulnerability is pretty obvious when you think about it. What happens if a bunch of investors all want their money back at once? The fund managers can't just instantly sell a private loan to raise cash. So, they might restrict redemptions—a move that protects the portfolio from fire sales but can seriously spook the remaining investors.
El-Erian describes the contagion risk with a classic line from financial history: "If you can't sell what you want, you sell what you can." An investor facing a liquidity squeeze in their private credit fund might start dumping stocks, bonds, or other unrelated assets just to raise cash. That selling pressure can then spread volatility far beyond the private credit market itself, tightening financial conditions for everyone.
Meanwhile, Back at the Oil Well...
While that financial drama is simmering, the geopolitical pot is boiling over. Tensions involving Iran have traders worried about Middle Eastern oil supply, particularly through the critical Strait of Hormuz. Energy prices have jumped as a result.
"The oil stocks have given me three years of performance in six months, which is a bit disconcerting," said natural resource investor Rick Rule in a recent interview. He cautions that part of this rally is likely a geopolitical risk premium—a price for fear. "If humankind resolves this conflict in the near term, the oil quote falls back into the low $60s or high $50s," he suggested.
But Rule points to a deeper, structural issue that won't go away with a ceasefire: years of underinvestment in maintaining and expanding production. "Deferral of sustaining capital investments will impact the supply of oil this decade," he said, noting how similar policies led to production declines in countries like Mexico and Venezuela.
Veteran analyst Alan Longbon adds another layer: timing. The 2026 oil shock isn't hitting the same economy as the 2022 one did. Back then, the world was bouncing back from the pandemic and housing was strong. Now, the economic cycle looks more fragile. Rising oil prices now risk a classic cost-push inflation shock—hurting consumers with higher costs while pushing up inflation readings. That puts central banks in a nasty bind: tighten policy to fight inflation, or ease to support slowing growth?
The Odd Economic Cushion: War Spending
It's not all one-way economic drag, though. There's a strange, dark offset: government spending on military operations. Longbon estimates the U.S. is spending about $1 billion per day on the war effort. That's roughly $365 billion a year, or about 1.3% of GDP. That kind of money flowing into the economy can provide some temporary support, even as higher energy prices act as a tax on everyone else.
Longbon also looks at the big picture through the lens of the 18-year housing cycle. "Real estate theory shows time and time again that despite a benign trajectory, factors tend to come together at the end of the cycle to make it terminate on time," he warns. He thinks there's still some runway left before a downturn, but notes that housing-related stocks can be early warning signals. Watching names like Home Depot (HD) or the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) might show how the housing and business cycles are handling the pressure from higher energy costs.
When the Risks Start Shaking Hands
This is where it gets interesting, in a nerve-wracking kind of way. You have two distinct risks:
- Private credit stress threatens the liquidity plumbing of the capital markets.
- An oil price spike threatens macroeconomic stability through inflation and growth shocks.
The scary part is how they might interact. Think about the chain reaction: Higher energy prices raise costs for corporations and slow down the overall economy. That puts more pressure on the very companies that have borrowed money from... you guessed it, private credit funds. If those corporate borrowers start struggling, defaults could rise, shaking investor confidence in private credit even more.
Now run it the other way. If private credit stress leads to tighter lending conditions and less investment, that reduces the economy's resilience just as it's getting hit with an energy shock and supply chain snarls.
The timing makes this particularly sensitive. Compared to recent history, this potential oil shock is arriving late in both the housing and credit cycles. Leverage is high, and financial conditions are more sensitive to sudden changes in liquidity. And as Rick Rule noted, the structural underinvestment in energy means the supply side is fragile for the long term, regardless of how the current conflict plays out.
The bottom line? Even if the immediate geopolitical crisis cools off and oil volatility settles down, the deeper vulnerabilities—especially in energy supply and in the private credit market's structure—aren't going anywhere. Solving the next crisis might not be as simple as just stepping back from the brink. The risks have already started mingling.
