Blain’s Morning Porridge May 8th, 2026 – 81 years later what have we learnt?“War is the unfolding of miscalculations.”Today is the 81st anniversary of VE Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe. Markets are fixated on rising stock prices and probably won’t notice. Complacency is the danger. The Wars in Ukraine and Iran highlight success and failure and point towards a very different future world than the expected one. There are massive implications for markets – but that’s a tomorrow problem for markets focused on “now”. I try to catch “shifts” in The Morning Porridge – seeking to contextualise the significance of events across investment and trading. (I guess I always was a frustrated journalist.) I glean and refine my thoughts from the chats I have with clients, and the stuff I read while doing my day job – working to advise and finance on private capital assets, and increasingly on the defence fund, Spitfire Strategic Capital.If there is an overarching theme to The World (in the three short hours I put aside early each morning to scribble the Porridge), it’s how swiftly expectations can change. That has never been truer than it is today. Ukraine was expected to be overrun in just a few days. Iran was going to beaten into submission to Trump’s will over a similar time frame. How these wars play out will have enormous future consequences.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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