Been watching the market sweat over the Iran situation, and honestly, it's the same playbook we see every time geopolitics heats up. Oil's spiking, everyone's panicking about inflation derailing the Fed's rate cuts, and there's definitely some real concern about energy supply disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz.

But here's what I keep coming back to: we've got 86 years of data that tells a pretty clear story. Ryan Detrick from Carson Group pulled together 43 major geopolitical events since 1940, and the pattern is almost boring in how consistent it is. Out of those 43 events, the S&P 500 was higher 65% of the time one year later. Yeah, the average return was only 3%, which is nothing special, but the point isn't the return—it's that roughly two-thirds of the time, these events just don't matter for the long game.

I get why people are nervous though. The Shiller PE ratio is sitting at levels we haven't seen since the dot-com bubble, so there's legitimate concern about valuation. When you're already expensive and then you throw geopolitical uncertainty on top, it feels like a perfect storm. But that's exactly when perspective matters most.

Look, the market's been on a serious run under Trump—we're talking 57% on the Dow, 70% on the S&P 500, and 142% on the Nasdaq during his first term. Even since January this year, we've seen double-digit gains across the board. Yeah, there were the COVID crash in 2020 and the tariff shock in April, but those were speed bumps, not destination changes.

The thing about major events is they create short-term chaos but rarely touch the long-term trajectory of the economy or markets. Wars are terrible, and the humanitarian cost is real, but historically they don't break the stock market. The Shiller PE ratio might be elevated, but that's a separate conversation from whether geopolitical noise derails returns.

I'm not saying ignore the Iran situation—energy prices matter, inflation matters, Fed policy matters. But if you're looking at your portfolio and wondering if you should panic sell, history suggests you probably shouldn't. Two-thirds of the time, these events resolve and markets keep doing what they do. Time and perspective really are the best medicine for Wall Street anxiety right now.