Middle East war’s aftershocks hit markets: Hims & Hers tumbles and Thyssenkrupp slashes outlook

Hims & Hers shares fell about 16% after the company reported a first-quarter loss and issued weaker-than-expected earnings guidance, signaling demand and cost pressures that investors were not pricing in. The same market session also saw renewed attention to how the Middle East conflict is feeding through into corporate results and national budgets, according to budget papers highlighted by Arena News. In parallel, Thyssenkrupp cut its sales outlook, citing weakness in steel and automotive alongside the drag from the Mideast war, and Reuters-linked reporting reinforced the deterioration in near-term revenue expectations. Thyssenkrupp Nucera, a key unit within the group, also froze hiring as its second-quarter loss widened, underscoring that management is tightening labor and operating plans rather than betting on a quick rebound. Geopolitically, the cluster points to a classic “second-order” transmission mechanism: kinetic conflict in the Middle East is not only affecting energy and shipping risk perceptions, but is now showing up in industrial demand, supply-chain confidence, and fiscal planning. Budget papers describing lasting impacts suggest governments are preparing for persistent higher costs—whether through defense-related spending, social support, or macro stabilization—rather than assuming a short-lived shock. For industrial exporters and manufacturers, the war’s uncertainty can depress orders in steel-intensive and auto-linked supply chains, while also raising input and financing risk premia. In this environment, investors appear to be rewarding balance-sheet discipline and penalizing guidance cuts, while companies with exposure to cyclical end-markets face a double hit from both macro caution and conflict-linked risk. Market and economic implications are visible across consumer health and heavy industry. Hims & Hers’ ~16% drop is a direct equity repricing tied to guidance, which can spill over into broader sentiment for telehealth and subscription-driven consumer platforms, even if the conflict is not the immediate driver. Thyssenkrupp’s sales outlook cut and Nucera’s hiring freeze point to downside risk for industrial capex cycles, with steel and automotive weakness acting as the proximate catalysts and the Middle East war acting as an amplifier. While the articles do not provide specific commodity price moves, the direction of travel is clear: higher uncertainty tends to weigh on industrial metals demand expectations and can pressure European industrial equities through earnings revisions and lower forward margins. The combined effect is likely to increase volatility in European industrials and growth/consumer-health equities, with risk-off positioning favoring defensives and balance-sheet strength. What to watch next is whether guidance deterioration broadens beyond these firms and whether budget language translates into concrete fiscal measures. For Hims & Hers, the key trigger is follow-through in subsequent-quarter metrics—subscriber growth, unit economics, and cost discipline—because the initial guidance weakness is already driving a sharp repricing. For Thyssenkrupp and Nucera, investors will focus on whether management can stabilize order intake and margins, and whether the hiring freeze becomes a longer restructuring signal. On the geopolitical side, the “lasting impacts” framing in budget papers should be monitored for quantified assumptions on conflict duration, energy risk, and macro stabilization costs, since those assumptions can feed into sovereign spreads and industrial demand. A practical escalation/de-escalation timeline would hinge on any new Middle East shock that changes shipping/energy risk perceptions, alongside upcoming corporate earnings updates and budget implementation milestones that could either reinforce caution or enable a gradual normalization.

Geopolitical Implications

• 01

  Second-order effects of the Middle East war are hitting corporate guidance and fiscal assumptions.

• 02

  Governments appear to be planning for persistent higher costs, affecting sovereign risk and industrial demand.

• 03

  Risk premia are rising across cyclical European industrials and guidance-sensitive consumer-health equities.

Key Signals

• —Next-quarter subscriber and margin metrics for Hims & Hers.
• —Order intake and margin stabilization for Thyssenkrupp amid steel/auto weakness.
• —Whether Nucera’s hiring freeze expands into broader restructuring.
• —Budget implementation details quantifying conflict-duration and macro-stabilization costs.