Table of Contents

• Oil, rates, volatility: markets get a rough awaken …

• Few numbers

• One agreement, three religions, one face

• The Magnificent 7

• B-R & H Finance

Market Review

Oil, rates, volatility: markets get a rough awakening

A month of open conflict in Iran is starting to leave visible marks on the markets. US indices have now chalked up five consecutive weeks of losses, a first since 2022: the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ended Friday at their lowest levels since late summer, and the Nasdaq has slipped into correction territory, more than 10% below its peak.

Beneath the headline indices, the tone has hardened but has not yet tipped into full‑blown crisis. Several investment banks argue that a further 5–10% fall in the S&P 500 would throw up attractive entry points, set against still‑decent nominal growth and the absence of immediate recession signals – especially if the Fed were to strike a more conciliatory note in the face of tighter financial conditions. The market narrative is shifting from “soft landing with multiple rate cuts” to a far less comfortable regime of “rates high for longer, wider risk premia”.

The numbers tell a clear story. Over the month, the best resilience came from energy and raw‑materials names, while the most rate‑sensitive pockets – technology, communication services, listed real estate – suffered the heaviest falls. Portfolios most exposed to equity “duration” or to emerging markets have been hit hardest, whereas more value‑oriented and defensive segments have provided some welcome cushioning.

On the rates side, the move has been striking. The US 10‑year has drifted back towards its highs for the year around 4.5%, and the 30‑year has edged close to 5%. In Europe, the French 10‑year touched 3.88%, its highest level since 2009, despite a 2025 deficit now seen a little better than expected at 5.1% of GDP. In the space of a month, the German 2‑year has climbed by almost 70 basis points and the US 2‑year by around 55, signalling a complete reversal in monetary expectations: investors who were still counting on rate cuts are now bracing for the possibility of fresh hikes and, above all, for the notion that real rates may stay elevated for longer than they had hoped.

Brent crude has continued to move sharply higher, extending the rally triggered by the war in Iran and fuelling debate over a supply shock that could prove more lasting than first thought. The combination of expensive oil and higher rates is pushing up the cost of capital for companies and goes some way to explaining the underperformance of growth sectors, while a number of industrial and financial names still benefit from stronger balance sheets and less demanding valuations. For global indices, the message is one of a forced rebalancing after two years in which US technology held sway.

Gold, for its part, has retreated from its January record around Usd 5'589 an ounce to the Usd 4'430–4'450 area, yet remains far above the levels seen at the start of 2025 (below Usd 3'000).

For long‑term investors, this month of stress is above all a reminder of how crucial it is to diversify across regions and sectors. Portfolios that blended energy, European value and defensive Swiss holdings have absorbed the decline in the big global indices – still dominated by US technology – far more comfortably.

Few numbers

• The IAEA now sees global nuclear capacity, currently around 370–380 GW with just over 410 reactors in operation, potentially reaching up to 950 GW by 2050 in its high case – more than double today’s level.

• According to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, it takes on average about 5–6 years to build a reactor in China or South Korea, versus 8–10 years in the US and over 15 years for recent projects such as Flamanville‑3 in France or Olkiluoto‑3 in Finland.

• The latest Ipsos‑BVA poll for Orano finds that 61% of French people now see nuclear power as an asset for the country, versus just 6% who see it as a liability. Support is now a majority view across almost the entire political spectrum, with the main exception of Green voters, who are still only 47% in favour.

Editorial

One agreement, three religions, one face

For Judaism, Abraham is born “in Ur of the Chaldeans”, somewhere between today’s Iraq and Turkey, before setting out for Haran and then Canaan on the strength of a single call: “leave your country”. He becomes the first to break with the idols of his city, the father of Isaac and the ancestor of the people of Israel, the one with whom God makes a covenant.

For Christianity, Abraham is this same man, seen through a particular lens: not only an ancestor of Jesus, but above all a model of faith, the “father of all believers” because he trusted before there was either Law or Church. His figure is born in the Old Testament, then runs through the New like a red thread: a man walking in the night with just enough light for the next step.

For Islam, Ibrahim is again the same figure, developed in a different way: a prophet, “friend of God” (Khalil-Allah), a believer who rediscovers the one God in the midst of stone statues. The Qur’an makes him the spiritual father of Muslims, the one who, together with his son, raises the foundations of the Kaaba in Mecca, centre of the Muslim pilgrimage, rooted in a strictly monotheistic tradition.

One story, told differently

All three traditions share certain scenes: a departure from the native land, family quarrels, negotiations with the powerful, and above all that anxious climb up the mountain where a son is to be sacrificed. In the Jewish and Christian Bible, this son is called Isaac; in the Muslim tradition, it is Ishmael, the elder.
But the heart of the story is the same: at the last moment, the knife stops, and a ram takes the child’s place on the altar. The scene hangs in the air: breath held, silence on the mountain, then the faint rustle of the ram, caught by its horns in a thicket.

Abraham and Easter: an echo

As Easter approaches, Christianity rereads this story as a kind of foreshadowing of the Passion: a father, a son, wood carried to the place of sacrifice, and the idea that an act of self‑giving can change the course of history. The difference is decisive: Isaac is ultimately spared, whereas in Christian faith Christ goes all the way to the cross; hence the conviction that no further human sacrifice is legitimate or necessary.
In the end, a single question remains: how far does trust go, and what are we prepared to sacrifice in the name of God?

A name for today’s politics

When, in 2020, Israel and several Arab states sign normalisation agreements and choose to call them the “Abraham Accords”, the name is no accident. They are banking on the image of a common ancestor, older than borders, flags and recent wars, to drape in symbols a very contemporary convergence of interests: security, technology, tourism, cross‑investment.
The scene is easy to picture: on one side, pens lined up on a white table, handshakes, flags carefully framed; on the other, like a watermark, that old name out of the desert, Abraham, who has known inheritance disputes, exiles and renunciations. Between the two lies the wager – or the illusion – that invoking a shared origin can soften, a little, the violence of the present.

What remains when the symbol fades?

Abraham is a double figure: a potential bridge between Jews, Christians and Muslims, but also a point of contention, each claiming to be the true heir of his promise. The Abraham Accords erase neither injustices nor conflicts; they simply show that politics sometimes goes rummaging in the oldest stories to dress its most modern compromises.

What remains is this simple image, a few days before Easter: a man lifts the knife and, on the brink of the irreparable, halts his hand. It may be that the real “Abraham accord” is played out there: in that suspended second when one renounces the sacrifice of the other, and accepts that, even in the heart of the drama, life of innocents should prevail.

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Investments

The Magnificent 7

The “Magnificent 7” are going through a tricky phase: their share prices have corrected, but their profits have never been higher. As a group, the basket now trades at a much lower premium than at the peak of the 2024–2025 cycle, even though earnings are still moving up and analyst revisions remain broadly positive.

In percentage terms, these seven names account for roughly a third of the S&P 500’s market cap; in absolute terms, they are profit machines. They no longer trade at the sky‑high levels that fuelled bubble talk just a few months ago. The basket now sits around 21.5× forward earnings, at a time when the Nasdaq 100 has gone more than 100 days without a new all‑time high – one of the longest stretches since 2017.

The same pattern appears name by name: Nvidia trades around 20× 12‑month earnings versus a five‑year average near 48×; Amazon around 22× (vs. roughly 32× on a five‑year view); Microsoft around 20× despite revenues still growing close to 20% a year; Meta on about 16×, after a single‑day drop of 8% with no fresh news.

Historically, these companies enjoyed 40–50% gross margins, light asset bases, double‑digit growth and limited competition. Today, they are ploughing a very large share – sometimes almost all – of their free cash flow into heavy infrastructure (data centres, semiconductors, networks), which feeds the bearish narrative on margin sustainability. Yet Nvidia stands out as the main beneficiary: on its latest quarter, it posted a gross margin close to 78–80%, with operating margins that are exceptionally high for an industrial business. Each dollar of capex spent by the big cloud providers translates, for Nvidia, into a profit pool far beyond that of a “classic” chipmaker.

Add up the expected earnings of Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia and you reach several hundred billion dollars a year, with several groups individually on track to generate Usd 80–100 billion of operating profit in the not‑too‑distant future.

For a long‑term investor, the question is no longer “at what P/E do we buy these stocks?”, but rather: at these valuations, can you seriously justify not owning them?

B-R & H Finance

Founded in 2004, B-R & H Finance SA is a Swiss entity specialized in wealth management. We offer a full range of personalized and independent investment services and advisory solutions. Regulated by SO-Fit and authorized by FINMA, we are also members of the ASG (Swiss Association of Independent Asset Managers) and work with leading custodian banks.

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