FX Moment: Iran War and Assessing the Shifting Dollar Narrative

The Iran war challenges Bloomberg Intelligence’s early 2026 dollar bear view via two key channels. First, the large-scale risk-off move over the past few sessions has revived the dollar’s safe-haven appeal, reinforcing that in a broad-based flight-to-safety backdrop the greenback comes out stronger. Second, if the recent oil-price surge persists, it could lift global inflation and force markets to rethink expected 2H Fed rate cuts, weakening the yield-driven case for a softer dollar.

In this episode of FX Moment, Bloomberg Intelligence Chief FX Strategist Audrey Childe-Freeman and BI’s Chief Asia FX and Rates Strategist Stephen Chiu discuss how higher oil prices can also support the dollar vs. the euro or yen through the net oil exporter vs. net oil importer dynamic. They also revisit BI’s strong Asia FX convictions from early 2026, including a still-supportive yuan outlook.