Investors yet to clock ASX’s Iran war gains, analyst says

Binaya Dahal

Journalist

22 April 2026

Australia has become one of the few advanced economies benefiting from the Iran war, but most local investors are yet to recognise the opportunity, according to Wealth Within Limited’s chief investment analyst Dale Gillham.

The ASX 200 Energy Index has climbed almost 20% since the conflict began, hitting its highest level in three months, as Woodside Energy and Santos fill a supply gap left by Asian buyers displaced from Middle Eastern cargoes.

“The ASX has quietly become one of the only developed markets where this conflict is a tailwind rather than a drag, and most local investors still haven’t clocked it,” Gillham said.

Australian LNG exporters are capturing what Gillham calls “Asian panic buying”, demand he expects to persist well beyond any near-term stabilisation in crude prices.

“Local LNG exporters will keep capturing the upside of Asian panic buying long after oil prices cool – that’s the part most global investors are missing,” he said.

The dynamic sets Australia apart from the US and Europe, where energy price volatility and geopolitical uncertainty have weighed on equities.

A weakening Australian dollar is adding a second, less visible tailwind, creating a currency multiplier for gold miners such as Northern Star Resources and Evolution Mining, which sell in US dollars while bearing costs in the softer local currency.

“It is the closest thing to a leveraged safe-haven trade that the ASX has,” Gillham said.

He said the pattern has held across every major Middle Eastern disruption since 1990, making unhedged Australian equity exposure more rewarding than currency-hedged strategies.

“Going unhedged is the second tailwind most investors never factor in when they default to a hedged ETF,” Gillham said.