Safe havens or war hedges? Asset behavior during the 2026 escalation of the Iran conflict

We examine whether the late-February 2026 escalation of the Iran conflict revived the safe-haven role of traditional and alternative assets. Using daily Refinitiv data, an event-study design, and interaction regressions with global equity returns, we analyze gold, Bitcoin, oil, and European natural gas (TTF) around the conflict escalation. Gold provides, at best, weak safe-haven properties, with no significant abnormal returns and higher volatility during the event window. Bitcoin offers no robust protection. Oil displays the clearest short-run hedge, but because its payoff is directly exposed to war-related supply risk. The evidence points to war hedges rather than a broad re-emergence of genuinely safe assets.