As the war between Iran and the United States and Israel continues, the stock market and investments have seen some ebb and flow since then.

Journey Financial Owner and Certified Financial Planner Tim Heisterkamp explains what the stock market immediately did when the bombings first started almost two weeks ago.

“Initially it’s a knee-jerk reaction but if this thing gets extended out, then it would have probably a more negative impact on both the stock and bond market. But not only that, we have to look at the US dollar, it has actually gone up since the Iranian conflict started, oil prices have gone up. There’s always events like this that will affect the (stock) market.”    

Heisterkamp points to some examples of where the stock market reacted negatively in the immediacy to a situation but bounced back and results in new highs, including the tariff announcements across several countries last March and the initial stages of the covid pandemic. 

Another recent concern for consumers has been the increasing price of gasoline since the Iranian conflict started, but Heisterkamp explains fluctuations like this tend to happen in the short term, as a similar trend happened in the summer of 2024 with gasoline prices. He talks about the possible impacts if the gas prices continue to incline.

“It just means the consumer has less money to spend on other things like being able to go out to eat, because gasoline is a necessity. You need gasoline to maybe get to work, especially if you commute. And it does have an effect on goods and services being trucked into our grocery stores and to our other stores as well. So, sometimes it can have an inflationary effect on the price of goods and services that we have, and then therefore decrease the amount of money a person has to spend money on other things.”   

Heisterkamp stresses that almost two-thirds of the economy is consumer-driven and if you didn’t change your spending habits too much, and the fact that businesses will figure out how to continue the supply and demand balancing act, the economy will progress.