The risks that will define the global economy in the second half of 2026

Every year has its list of things that could go wrong, but the second half of 2026 is unusual in how tightly its risks are linked. A single event in the energy market could move inflation, interest rates, technology valuations and even elections at once. Rather than a scatter of unrelated worries, the picture is closer to a small number of large hinges, and the direction each one swings will do more to shape the next six months than the steady economic data released along the way. What follows is a reading of those hinges and of how they connect.

The energy truce is the master switch

The most important variable is the durability of the fragile ceasefire in the Gulf, which observers put at something close to even odds. The reason it matters so much is that it sits upstream of almost everything else. If the truce holds, the world gets a disinflation tailwind as energy prices settle, with one set of forecasts putting Brent crude in the low 70 dollar range. If it breaks, the world absorbs a second oil shock, with another forecast pointing toward roughly 90 dollars a barrel by year end. Crude is already trading above 78 dollars after a sharp jump, and the gap of around 20 dollars between the two scenarios is, in effect, the price of peace.

The consequences of that gap reach far beyond the petrol pump. A renewed spike would force central banks toward a more hawkish stance just as they were preparing to ease, tighten financial conditions across the board, and add pressure to the Asian supply chains that feed the technology sector. It would also ripple into politics, colouring a run of votes that includes the US midterms in November, elections in Israel by late October and state elections in Germany in September. One energy variable, in other words, is quietly wired into the outcome of several of the year's biggest political and monetary decisions.

Growth is steadier than the headlines suggest

Against that uncertainty, the underlying growth picture is more reassuring than the risk list implies. Global output is expected to run at an annualised pace of around 3.1 percent in the second half, a clear acceleration from an estimated 1.6 percent in the first, while a widely watched multilateral projection sees full year global growth near 2.5 percent. The catch is that forecasting at this range carries a typical margin of error close to a full percentage point, which means the difference between a good year and a disappointing one is well within the normal band of forecasting error. Growth is the ballast here, steadier than the shocks around it, but not so strong that it could absorb a serious blow without slowing.

• A Gulf ceasefire with roughly even odds of holding, sitting upstream of oil, inflation and rates.
• Oil scenarios ranging from the low 70s to around 90 dollars a barrel, a gap of about 20 dollars.
• Global growth near 3.1 percent annualised in the second half, up from about 1.6 percent in the first.
• A full year global growth projection near 2.5 percent, with a typical forecast error close to one point.
• A shifting trade regime as one tariff framework expires in late July and new levies are expected.
• An artificial intelligence boom funded increasingly outside the banking system, raising correction risk.

Trade is quietly being rewired

The second hinge is trade policy, which is being reshaped in ways that are easy to miss behind the louder energy story. One set of emergency tariffs is due to expire in late July, and replacement levies are widely expected to follow, with a revenue target thought to sit somewhere between 25 and 30 billion dollars a month. At the same time, the European Union has sharply escalated its trade defence activity, opening more than 50 investigations against Chinese goods against a historical norm closer to 17 a year, and is preparing a broader economic security strategy for the autumn. Taken together, these moves point to a world where the rules of trade are tightening and fragmenting at the same time, which raises costs, complicates supply chains and adds a slow, structural drag that does not show up in any single dramatic number.

The artificial intelligence boom is the hidden fault line

The third hinge is the one that looks most like a classic bubble risk. The artificial intelligence build out has been extraordinary, but a growing share of the capital behind it comes from outside the traditional banking system, with private credit to the sector having quadrupled in five years. That funding structure is the concern. Because the money is less visible and less regulated than bank lending, a downturn could trigger a sharper and faster correction than a conventional banking crisis. A scenario in which technology stocks fall by a quarter over a year is not the base case, but it is taken seriously enough to model, and such a bust is estimated to knock more than a full percentage point off global growth the following year. Layer on the sector's dependence on semiconductors made in a handful of Asian hubs, and the same energy and trade risks described above feed straight back into it.

Central banks hold the shock absorber

The final piece is monetary policy, which is the main tool available to cushion any of these shocks. The prevailing expectation is that major central banks will prove more dovish than markets currently price, leaning toward easing while staying ready to reverse course if energy or inflation surprise to the upside. That flexibility is genuinely valuable, because it gives the system a shock absorber. But it is also finite. A large enough oil shock would remove the room to cut and force policy the other way, which is why the energy truce and the central banks are best read as two ends of the same lever rather than separate stories.

Our reading

Three conclusions follow. First, the risks of the second half are not independent, and the mistake would be to treat them as a checklist rather than a chain. Energy feeds inflation, inflation sets the central banks, the central banks price the technology boom, and trade policy runs underneath all of it, which means the honest way to watch the half is to follow the connections rather than any single indicator. Second, the balance of the list is skewed toward the downside, because the base case of steady growth is quietly good while the tail risks, from an oil shock to a technology correction, are severe and self reinforcing. Third, and most relevant to this region, the position of the Gulf in this map is distinctive. It sits at the source of the single most important variable, energy, and its own steady work to diversify away from oil and to build export routes that do not depend on any single chokepoint is precisely the kind of resilience that a year like this rewards. We read the second half of 2026 as a test not of forecasting but of preparation, and on that measure the economies that spent the calm years building options are the ones best placed for whichever way the hinges turn.