Four months into the US-Israel war in Iran, the macroeconomic scoreboard has split sharply in two. Households across the developed world are paying more for fuel, electricity and food. Small manufacturers from Germany to Turkey are warning of margin compression. Governments are bracing for wider deficits. And a narrow band of multinational corporations — oil traders, investment banks, missile and radar makers — are reporting some of the strongest quarterly earnings of the post-Covid era.
The BBC's audit of the first-quarter 2026 results, published Friday, names the biggest beneficiaries. TotalEnergies, the French oil major, saw its profit rise by roughly a third to $5.4 billion, driven almost entirely by its trading arm's ability to exploit the price volatility caused by Iran's de-facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. ExxonMobil and Chevron, which have less trading exposure, saw earnings dip compared with last year but still beat analyst forecasts, and both guided higher for the rest of 2026 on the expectation that crude will stay elevated.
The banks are feasting on volatility
Wall Street's response to the war has been even more emphatic. JP Morgan's markets division booked a record $11.6 billion in quarterly revenue, powering the bank to its second-best quarter in history. Across the so-called Big Six — JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo — combined first-quarter profits hit $47.7 billion, up sharply year-on-year. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, whose models are most leveraged to trading activity, posted the biggest gains.
Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, told the BBC the pattern was mechanical. "The volatility unleashed by the war has led to a surge in trading, as some investors sold stocks on fears of escalation, while others bought the dip, helping to fuel a recovery rally." In short: it does not much matter which way the market moves, as long as it keeps moving — and Hormuz has ensured it does.
Defence contractors are the cleanest trade
The third cluster of winners is the defence sector. RSM UK analyst Emily Sawicz told the BBC the Iran conflict had "reinforced gaps in air defence capability, accelerating investment in missile defence, counter-drone" systems and integrated radar. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon parent RTX, and Northrop Grumman have all seen order books swell, and European pure-plays like BAE Systems and Rheinmetall are trading at multi-year highs.
The bill is paid elsewhere
None of these profits materialise out of nowhere. The oil premium passes through to motorists, truckers, airlines and — eventually — to the shelf price of almost everything else. The trading boom is largely a zero-sum transfer from risk-averse portfolios to market-makers. The defence spending is funded by taxpayers in Europe and North America at a moment when public finances are already strained by rising interest bills.
Our take
There is nothing new about wars being profitable for a narrow slice of the corporate world. What is new this cycle is how quickly and transparently those profits have been booked — and how openly the winners are willing to say so on earnings calls. If the ceasefire talks Washington and Tehran are circling this weekend actually produce a deal, expect the oil traders, the Wall Street desks and the defence suppliers to be the first to lobby against its durability.
