By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) -Below are five charts showing the volatile response of global financial markets to the war between Israel and Hamas over the last two years.

1/TAKING STOCK

Israeli stocks and those of the world’s big weapons makers have surged since the October 7, 2023 attacks.

Defence stocks were already on the rise due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising risks elsewhere, but they accelerated sharply as the conflict in Gaza grew and are now more than 120% higher than they were when Hamas attacked Israel.

MSCI’s Israel stocks index is up more than 80% too – roughly 30 percentage points more than the main global stocks benchmarks – the shekel is up against the dollar following the greenback’s slump this year, while some of Israel’s banks have kept up with the defe

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