War, huh. What is it good for? Motown’s Edwin Starr did not ask the question with investors in mind, but yesterday markets offered a puzzling answer as the US and UK moved closer to an attack on Syria.
Taken at face value, war talk was good for the price of oil (of course), good for bonds, bad for equities and, oddly, bad for weapons manufacturers. It was also atrocious for Arab stock markets, with Dubai’s main index tumbling 7 per cent.
Syria itself does not matter much to investors. It is not integrated into the world economy and not an oil power. Even the horrific alleged gas attack in Damascus pales into insignificance compared with the deaths mostly ignored by morally outraged politicians: hundreds of people appear to have been killed by gas, a tiny drop in the ocean of blood already spilled in a two-year long civil war in which 100,000 people have died.