Human tragedies hit the headlines in any violent conflict, quite properly, but wars produce winners as well as losers. BAE Systems (BA.) is a major beneficiary of bad news from the Middle East and Ukraine which help to make it Britain’s biggest manufacturing business.

Its products include advanced combat systems, including fighter jets – such as the Eurofighter Typhoon – and F-35 components, plus submarines – including the Astute and Dreadnought classes – warships, armoured combat vehicles, and precision munitions. BAE makes Royal Navy submarines at its base in Barrow-in-Furness, Britain’s biggest shipyard. It also produces electronic warfare systems, cyber security solutions, and space electronics.

Hard commodities – such as iron ore and metallurgical coal for making steel – are about as far away as you can get from the digital world of artificial intelligence (AI). So investors should consider mining businesses for diversification to reduce the risk that all the assets in our portfolios go up or down at the same time.

Better still, the world’s biggest miner, BHP Holdings (BHP), with a stock market value of Australian dollars $336 billion (£178 billion) is a deliberately forward-facing business. It is the largest producer of copper and the global trend toward electrification would not get very far without this red metal’s excellent conductivity. Looking forward, BHP is also close to becoming one of the biggest producers of fertilisers needed to feed the rising global population.

Next month’s $500 million (£374 million) stock market flotation of the supertanker owner, Volare Shipping, follows war in the Middle East forcing freight rates to hit record highs. This will be the first public listing of a business owned by Trafigura, the world’s second-largest oil trader, and shows how it’s an ill wind that blows no good. Fortunately, there are several ways closer to home for investors to gain exposure to shipping, and I own shares in three of them – including one that has nearly doubled in the last year.

Never mind the geopolitics and hot air about Donald Trump’s latest deal, due to be signed at the United Nations next Tuesday. It will give a stimulant shot in the arm to a major healthcare share that has been sickly for years, despite this business finding the biggest blockbuster drug of the century.

When technology shares plunged on fears that “artificial intelligence (AI) will kill us all” this 150 year-old London-listed business saw its stock surge 8% higher on Monday and another 6% yesterday. That means it has gained 43% since I invested in March, as reported at that time. Better still, this business still yields 3.2% income after increasing or sustaining dividends for 35 years without fail, and might have further to grow.

Easily the most important event for investors this week – and even, perhaps, the survival of humanity – will not occur in the Square Mile or New York or Tokyo. Instead, perhaps surprisingly, it will occur outside the wee Scots market town of Dumfries. Yes, I am being serious.

Renewed violence in the Middle East, including American claims to have destroyed five Iranian tankers, pushed the oil price to peak at $104 per barrel this week. That’s bad news for the global economy and stock markets. No wonder Japanese shares fell by 2% on Friday, albeit with America and Britain maintaining marginal gains.
But the ‘forever fund’ benefited substantially from its diversified portfolio, with my biggest holding seeing its share price surge 3.5% higher in a day (it’s been a ten-bagger for years now) on long-awaited new products. Meanwhile, a high-flying tiddler announced a £202m uplift, doubling the value of its biggest holding, which is expected to add more than a third to this investment trust’s net asset value (NAV) when that is updated at the end of this month.

Nobody who was an adult on 9/11 will ever forget where we were on that tragic day when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York, causing the deaths of 2,977 innocent people. Nothing can ever subtract from that human tragedy and the scale of those catastrophic events, although historians and politicians very properly continue to analyse how the world changed on September 11, 2001.

Less obviously, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 today also demonstrates humanity’s capacity to recover in time from the most unimaginable setbacks. While historians and politicians focus on the human tragedy, with due respect it falls to this column to consider how the Twin Towers disaster impacted the economy and stock market.

Apple (stock market ticker: AAPL) will launch its first foldable iPhone tomorrow as incoming  chief executive and former head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, heralds a new era of innovation. But with a price tag above $2,000 (£1,480), will 1.5 billion active iPhone users buy, twist or fold?

Shares in the world’s second-most valuable company slipped 2.5% lower yesterday as investors fretted that the long-awaited launch, dubbed ‘Surprise and Shine’, might flop. But company insiders insist it is “about to start the biggest run of device releases in its history, delivering a wave of fresh form factors and whole new product areas in 2026, 2027 and beyond”.