Arab Spring: The return of geopolitical risk

Investors are learning to price in factors such as autocracy premia and remembering that oil and democracy rarely mix easily.

Geopolitical risk is back on investors’ minds, and so it should be. The most geo-strategically sensitive region of the world is entering a period of intense political and economic flux. And the wave of political change and instability could spread out of the Middle East.

The main question for global markets is what it means for the oil price, and consequently the dollar’s strength. What it means for the Middle East’s local financial markets is largely irrelevant to the rest of the world.

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