The Iran War Will Make Millionaires (Here's How)
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Oil prices rise again nationwide amid
the war in Iran. The war between the
United States, Israel, and Iran has
reached a perilous new turning point.
>> Your S&P and Nasdaq are now on track for
their fifth straight negative week.
>> Millionaires are made in markets like
these, and the more the market panics,
the bigger the opportunity, especially
if we can be greedy when everyone else
is being fearful. So, in this video,
I'll cover everything you need to know
to actually take advantage of this crazy
situation and get rich without getting
lucky. Your time is valuable, so let's
get right into it. First things first, I
owe you an apology. I've been getting
tons of comments and messages asking me
to cover the Iran war, and honestly, I
was staying quiet because there's just
no end to the macro and geopolitical
whirlwind that we're constantly in.
Inflation, tariffs, trade wars, and now
real wars, and I wanted to stay focused
on the long-term fundamentals that
actually matter for building wealth. But
based on your reactions and the extreme
fear in the broader market, I really
should have covered this conflict
sooner. So, that's on me. Let me make it
up to you now by covering a few things
that the mainstream media has been
missing, like how this Iran war directly
impacts Nvidia, AMD, and every other AI
company on Earth, how long chip makers
can hold out before their supply chains
actually start to break, which companies
are the most exposed and which ones
could come out on top, and of course,
which stocks I'm buying as a result. All
right, there's a lot to talk about, so
let's start with what's actually
happened so far. But instead of only
focusing on oil prices, I'll show you
the direct effects on AI and chip
companies as we go. As I'm sure you
know, the Strait of Hormuz is a narrow
waterway between Iran and Oman that
about 20% of the world's oil shipments
pass through every day. Oil sets the
baseline cost of moving everything. So,
when oil prices spike, shipping,
insurance, and every energy-heavy part
of the chip supply chain gets more
expensive, which means the cost of every
wafer, every chip, and every rack of
GPUs goes up, and that drives margins
down. But, oil is just one of five
critical resources for AI chips and data
centers that pass through the strait.
LNG, liquefied natural gas, is another.
LNG powers the electricity grids in
South Korea and Taiwan, where the
overwhelming majority of all advanced
chips on Earth are made. So, less LNG
means higher electricity costs and
potential power constraints for the fabs
that make almost all the chips for
Nvidia and AMD, Apple and Google, Tesla
and many more. Helium is the third. It's
used to keep machines and silicon wafers
cool during lithography and to keep
contaminants away from chips during
deposition. Without helium, fabs can't
maintain the ultra-clean,
temperature-controlled environments that
they need to make the chips we invest
in. There's no real substitute for
helium here. This is a real choke point
that others have already covered, but
sulfur also passes through the strait,
which gets refined into the ultra-pure
sulfuric acid that's used to clean
silicon wafers between manufacturing
steps. Sulfur is also used to extract
copper from ore, and copper is literally
in every chip, every board, and every
cable in AI data centers. So, a sulfur
shortage doesn't just hit the fabs. It
can also cascade into a copper shortage
that raises costs across the entire AI
buildout. And the fifth one is bromine,
which almost never gets talked about.
Bromine compounds are used in important
chemicals inside chip fabs, so
disruptions here turn into disruptions
in the lithography and etching process.
Here's a table showing all five AI and
semiconductor inputs that are seriously
impacted by the Iran war. The point is,
this is way bigger than just oil prices
and helium supplies. A huge percentage
of the world's LNG, sulfur, and bromine
are also at stake here, and it's all
happening in the middle of the fastest
growth and most supply-constrained
period AI has ever seen. In fact,
according to Market US, the global
artificial intelligence market is
expected to almost 19X in size over the
next 9 years, which is a compound annual
growth rate of 38.5%
through 2034. But, many of the companies
building next-generation AI applications
are not publicly traded. Think about the
'90s and early 2000s. Companies like
Amazon and Google went public very early
in their growth cycle, but today they're
waiting an average of 10 years or longer
to go public. That means investors like
us can miss out on most of the returns
from the next Amazon, the next Google,
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right. So, while the growth opportunity
for AI is massive over the long term,
five critical supply chains feeding that
growth are getting disrupted in the
short term: oil, natural gas, helium,
sulfur, and bromine. Now that we have
that context, let's walk through what
actually happened and when. That will
tell us how long chipmakers can actually
hold out before their supply chains
start to break. February 28th, the US
and Israel launch a massive strike on
Iran. Oil prices spike, and some people
panic sell their stocks. But, the
broader market priced this in as a
short-lived scare. That includes me,
which is why I didn't cover it. The real
clock starts on March 2nd, when Iran
effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz
and Qatar Energy halted their natural
gas and helium exports in the region.
Roughly 20% of the world's oil and
natural gas, around 30% of the global
helium supply, and close to half of all
seaborn sulfur and bromine stopped
moving overnight. Every fab in Taiwan
and South Korea is now on borrowed time,
relying on shipments that were already
in transit, plus whatever buffers they
built up before the war. Two days later,
on March 4th, Qatar Energy declares
force majeure, warning their customers
that they can't honor shipping and
tanker contracts because of events
beyond their control. Shipping insurance
prices skyrocket, so sailing through the
strait stops making economic sense
altogether. Buyers in South Korea,
Taiwan, and Europe start scrambling for
new natural gas and helium contracts,
now at much higher prices. South Korea's
energy ministry begins emergency
measures to conserve oil and gas, while
Samsung and SK Hynix start drawing from
their own helium reserves. Samsung and
SK Hynix make most of the world's DRAM
and high bandwidth memory, critical
parts for AI data centers. Things
escalated again on March 18th and 19th,
when Iranian missiles struck a nat gas
facility in Qatar, knocking out around
17% of their export capacity for several
years, not days or weeks, and
constraining their helium production.
For investors, that means that even if
the war ends tomorrow, there will be a
multi-year disruption to LNG and helium
supplies that will last far longer than
the headlines. A week later, on March
24th, Qatar Energy expanded their force
majeure declaration, warning customers
in Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and
China that there will be a sustained
disruption to pre-existing supply
agreements for natural gas and helium.
Taiwanese and Korean fabs brace for
higher and more volatile energy costs.
On March 27th, Iran's Revolutionary
Guard Corps officially closes the Strait
of Hormuz for ships going to or from
ports in Israel, the US, and our allies.
That's also when the first round of
major shipping data hit the news. By the
end of March, not a single LNG tanker
passed through the strait, and only a
small fraction of the usual oil traffic
was getting through. All five supply
lines that I covered earlier, oil,
liquefied natural gas, helium, sulfur,
and bromine, are now disrupted. And that
brings us to today. From now on, every
week that the Strait of Hormuz stays
closed makes the size of stockpiles at
companies like Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC,
and even Micron start to matter more
than their long-term contracts. All
right, here's a table showing the
estimated risk exposure based on
everything we've talked about so far.
Each row is one of the five critical
supply lines we just covered, and each
column is a critical semiconductor
company sitting in a different region of
the world. Samsung and SK Hynix in
Korea, TSMC in Taiwan, Micron and Intel
in the US, and ASML in Europe. Almost
every AI and chip company depends on at
least one of these six companies, and
any supply problems that these companies
would have will ripple through the rest
of the AI ecosystem. A high-risk
exposure means that if supplies stay
disrupted, that company could face real
production problems, not just higher
costs. Low risk means they're mostly
dealing with price increases as opposed
to the risk of not being able to secure
those supplies at all. Oil, LNG, and
helium are all high or medium risks for
Korea and Taiwan because they heavily
rely on the supplies coming through
Hormuz. Korean memory makers in
particular are exposed to materials
shortages and power disruptions as the
war drags on. The risks are much lower
for US companies like Micron and Intel.
They'll still see higher prices, but
they have access to more domestic energy
and helium. So, the risks are mostly to
their margins unless they pass those
increased costs onto their customers.
And the same goes for ASML in Europe
with higher energy and material costs.
And now that you understand how and
where the supply chain is breaking,
let's talk about what that actually
means for AI stocks. And if you feel
I've earned it so far, consider hitting
the like button, subscribing to the
channel, and sharing this video. That
really helps the channel out and it lets
me know to make more content like this.
Thanks. Now, let's talk about which
stocks have the highest risks and which
ones could come out on top. Like I just
showed you, Samsung and SK Hynix have
the highest risks to their supply
chains. That's not just a problem for
ETFs like EWY, which is iShares South
Korea ETF, or DRAM, which is Roundhill's
brand new memory ETF that just hit the
market. These two companies are major
suppliers of high bandwidth memory for
Nvidia's Hopper, Blackwell, and Rubin
GPUs. Samsung also supplies some of the
HBM chips for AMD's Instinct MI350s and
over half of the HBM that goes into
Google's TPUs through Broadcom. So, if
the war drags on, companies like Nvidia,
AMD, and Google could start seeing
supply chain issues for their memory
chips. As Samsung and SK Hynix keep
juggling limited LNG, helium
constraints, and bromine supplies,
they'll probably cut their lower margin
DRAM products first and do everything
they can to protect their premium HBM
lines. But, they might be forced to make
some hard choices between protecting
their margins or protecting their market
share. TSMC is the other key company for
almost every stock I cover on this
channel. All of the GPUs and CPUs for
companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm
are made by TSMC, as well as all the
custom ASICs for Broadcom, Marvell,
Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. So, if
you own the stocks of any AI compute
companies, chances are they're exposed
to TSMC's supply chain risks. In
practice, TSMC has a little more
flexibility than Samsung and SK Hynix
because they reportedly have several
months of helium reserves. They're
already signing new natural gas deals
and they have the pricing power to pass
those higher costs onto their biggest
customers. So, I don't think there's any
real risk of TSMC actually shutting
down. I think that wafer prices will go
up and fabulous chip companies will see
their costs creep higher or have their
allocations capped. That's a real
headwind, for sure, but it's not as bad
as a full stop to chip production.
Micron could be one of the biggest
winners from this whole fiasco, at least
relatively speaking. Micron makes
high-bandwidth memory for AMD's Instinct
MI350s, for Nvidia's Blackwell and Rubin
GPUs, as well as DRAM and NAND memory
for Qualcomm and Broadcom, and even
flagship smartphones and major
automotive companies. Unlike Samsung and
SK Hynix, Micron has access to helium
from North America and depends less on
LNG that goes through the Strait of
Hormuz. On top of that, they have
record-level margins and their products
are heavily focused on data centers. So,
Micron is one of the few companies set
up to survive these supply shocks and
even pick up market share if the war
lasts for a long time. TSMC, Samsung,
and Intel account for a majority of
ASML's revenue, and Micron and SK Hynix
drive a big chunk of their
memory-related EUV business. So, if
CapEx shifts more towards lower-risk
regions or new fabs in the US, ASML is
one of the few companies still getting
paid. So, if the war puts long-term
pressure on supply chains to Taiwan and
South Korea, semiconductor equipment
companies like ASML, Lam Research,
ticker symbol LCRX, and Applied
Materials, ticker symbol AMAT, would end
up on the winning side of this story.
Now that you know where the supply choke
points are and which companies they
affect, let's talk about the three most
likely scenarios going forward and which
stocks I'm looking to buy based on what
actually happens next. I made a quick
and easy table to break it all down for
you. Scenario one is a near-term
resolution, like a ceasefire or a
partial deal in the next month or two.
Shipments through the strait start
ramping back up and LNG and helium
pressures come down before supply chains
take too much damage. If that happens,
the market will have overreacted on
almost every stock we've talked about
and I'd expect to see a broad post-war
relief rally in the market as fear turns
into greed. Scenario two is a long-term
drawn-out conflict. The Strait of Hormuz
never fully reopens and some of the
damaged gas and LNG capacity takes years
to come back online. Samsung, SK Hynix,
and even TSMC have higher input costs
going forward, which puts pressures on
their margins and on their customers.
Korean memory companies and the ETFs
built around them become higher risk
investments. TSMC and their big AI
customers become more volatile but are
still great long-term investments while
companies like Micron, ASML, Lam
Research, and Applied Materials come out
on top as HBM stays in high demand and
capex shifts towards safer supply
chains. Scenario three is a near-term
escalation, the opposite of scenario
one. Oil prices keep spiking, more
infrastructure is destroyed, and
shipping through the strait becomes
economically impossible. Institutional
investors de-risk their portfolios and
even the best AI companies see their
multiples go down. If that happens, I'm
taking profits on my South Korean
stocks. I'm building more cash and I'm
dollar cost averaging less into the rest
of my portfolio. The only stocks I'd
actively be buying in this scenario are
Micron and maybe ASML. Micron's HBM 4
capacity is already sold out for 2026
under long-term contracts and they're
based in the US, which I think more
companies will find very attractive if
the situation escalates. ASML is the
only real supplier of EUV lithography
machines and their supply chain is much
less dependent on the Strait of Hormuz.
Hopefully, this video helped you
understand that this war affects much
more than just oil prices. There are at
least five major resources that touch
almost every stock in the AI ecosystem
and that pass through the strait. Oil,
natural gas, helium, sulfur and bromine.
The companies most at risk are the
Korean high bandwidth memory makers and
their customers. So, that's where I'm
being extra cautious until this conflict
is fully resolved. That's when there
could be a big relief rally. The
companies with safer supply chains and
real pricing power like Micron and ASML
are the ones that I'm betting on even if
things stay the same or continue to
escalate, making them a great way to get
rich without getting lucky. Let me know
in the comments if you want me to make a
deep dive video on either of these
companies or what your plan is as the
conflict continues. And if you want to
see what else I'm buying to get rich
without getting lucky, check out this
video next. Either way, thanks for
watching and until next time, this is
ticker symbol U. My name is Alex,
reminding you that the best investment
you can make
is in you.
Ask follow-up questions or revisit key timestamps.
The video analyzes the geopolitical conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran, focusing on how the closure of the Strait of Hormuz impacts the global AI and semiconductor supply chains. Beyond oil prices, the speaker highlights five critical resources—oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), helium, sulfur, and bromine—that are essential for chip manufacturing and are currently facing supply disruptions. The video assesses the varying levels of risk for major companies like Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC, Micron, and ASML, offering insights into investment strategies based on different conflict resolution scenarios.
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