With the prospects of a resolution to the Iran war slowly growing more likely and the stock market having recovered all its losses from the conflict, investors are ready to put the events behind them. The question is what’s next.

In some cases, the war highlighted longer-running trends that some strategists and money managers say can continue. In others, they’re looking for new trends. Here’s a look at five things for investors to watch, including gold, higher oil prices, and reshoring.

Risk-reward balance improves for stocks

“Assuming there is a meaningful resolution in the Iran conflict and a normalization of the energy market, the economic and earnings backdrop is a healthy tailwind for markets,” wrote Mark Hackett, chief market strategist for Nationwide.

On April 16, LPL Research updated its Tactical Asset Allocation guidance to be “modestly overweight equities and underweight fixed income.” They wrote: “Importantly, this adjustment builds on positioning decisions made well before volatility increased, rather than reacting to market stress after the fact. In our view, the recent increase in volatility has improved the prospective risk reward for taking incremental equity risk, allowing us to translate preparation into action while remaining within our established tactical framework.”

Oil prices will remain higher for longer

The Strait of Hormuz reopening on April 17 immediately sent oil prices tumbling. Still, analysts say the war has changed the outlook for oil, partly because so many energy production facilities have been damaged. The April Bank of America global fund manager survey shows investors forecast oil at $84 a barrel by the end of 2026.

“Both inventory and capacity have been taken out of the market,” says Charles Shriver, who runs the T. Rowe Price Global Allocation, Balanced, and Spectrum Funds. Energy prices are ”likely not going to be at the level they were at the end of February. There will be a geopolitical risk premium.” Shriver continues: “You’re probably in the high $80s-$90s for energy, a level where it’s a headwind but not one that’s necessarily causes a recession. If you saw a dramatic negative turn, where you saw a spike in energy prices to $120 or $140, that could be a distinct headwind to growth.”

A refocus on energy efficiency and renewables

Elevated oil prices mean energy efficiency will grow even more important. In the first quarter, top performers in the separate accounts run by HIP Investors, a sustainably focused investment advisor, included Trane Technologies TT and Johnson Controls JCI. Both are energy efficiency plays that yield close to the market. “Natural resource efficiency and using less energy are important until the cost implication of spiking energy prices becomes less,” explains HIP CEO Paul Herman.

At the same time, rising demand for data centers and electrification has bolstered renewable energy stocks. Mark Hulbert of Callaway Climate Insights says alternative energy may outperform, even if they lagged traditional energy stocks during the war. Renewable energy is cost-competitive with conventional generation, according to a 2025 study by Lazard. The study found that solar energy costs $81-$217 per megawatt hour, compared with $149-$251 for gas-fired generation.

“Sustainable energy companies also are benefiting from the supply disruptions caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and corresponding volatility of fossil fuel prices,” Hulbert wrote on April 15. “Even if the Strait were opened immediately and the price of oil returned to its prewar level, recent hostilities have dramatically reminded us that sustainable energy’s production isn’t dependent on the vagaries of global geopolitics and whims of world leaders.”

Gold could stage a rebound

Gold—currently sharply lower than its all-time high—could revive, according to investment manager VanEck. Gold spot prices peaked on Jan. 28 at $5,589 per ounce, then plunged, seesawing during the war. Since the market bottomed on March 30, gold is up 6.7% to a recent $4,790 per ounce.

VanEck thinks gold will march higher because greater war-related spending will boost inflation. “The biggest outcome is not oil-related; it’s fiscal,” explains VanEck CEO Jan van Eck. “I was yelling and screaming with [the US budget] deficit at 6.4% of GDP in fiscal 2024. Now you can see you’re catapulted into the worst print in US history.”

Indeed, as oil rose, VanEck’s multi-asset portfolios began reducing exposure to oil and increasing exposure to gold. David Schassler, head of multi-asset solutions at VanEck, says: “The market is being very complacent because it is assuming a quick resolution. But if you study historical conflicts, the base case is a slow burn, they’re always more expensive, they take more time … Have the catalysts [for gold] changed? They’ve gotten worse.”

Reshoring will happen as a matter of national security

“We view the war as being one more symptom of this trend of deglobalization,” says Richard Bernstein, global head of macro investing at Janus Henderson. “There are lots of different symptoms. Tariffs are one. Wars are another.” He believes this trend will cause more inflation than people expect.

Schlasser expects more companies to invest in reshoring, reindustrialization, and deglobalization. This isn’t new; vulnerable supply chains emerged as a theme during the covid-19 pandemic. “The war reminds us of that,” he says. “Reshoring will happen as [a] function of national security. It’s a necessity.”

Schlasser’s model portfolios invest in the theme using the VanEck Real Assets ETF RAAX, which “has exposure to critical raw inputs, such as energy, copper and silver, and infrastructure development companies.” Its holdings include VanEck Commodity Strategy ETF PIT, which owns energy, precious metals, and industrial metals futures contracts. VanEck Real Assets was up 16.5% in the first quarter, versus a 4.2% gain for the Morningstar US Market index.