Record US stock rally under threat from a world in turmoil

Traders work on the floor of the NYSE in New York

New York: Investors and firms are flagging that the war in the Middle East poses a major risk for earnings as boycotts dampen sales and Red Sea shipping chaos threatens their supply chains.

Those headwinds pose a danger to the record rally in US stocks, according to a Bloomberg analysis of hundreds of earnings calls. By the halfway mark in the first quarter, the number of references to the Red Sea or “geopolitics” has almost matched the total for the previous three months.