As the war in Iran continues, economic optimism is falling—at least for the first half of 2026. Forbes senior contributor Bill Conerly breaks down what this means for executives: The strain on energy exports caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could lead to a recession at worst and, at best, will mean a change in strategy.

It’s unclear how long the conflict will continue, but Conerly suggests that CFOs take a close look at their companies’ exposure to all risks. How much would a recession impact the business? How much do oil prices impact your operations? And are there any plans to put on hold?

As finances may be getting tenuous, it’s a good time for companies to evaluate their revenue sources and consider whether any can be transformed into a new line of business. Thales, a software and defense company, works with businesses to monetize something they might not suspect is so valuable: customized and internally developed software that could be useful to others in their industry. I spoke with Vice President of Software Monetization Damien Bullot about this possibility, and an excerpt from our conversation appears later in this newsletter.

I will be taking a break next week, and Forbes CFO will not send on Tuesday, March 31. We’ll be back in your inboxes on Tuesday, April 7.

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While some sectors of the broader economy seem to be slowing down as the war in Iran enters its fourth week, the stock market and oil prices are ping-ponging up and down—mostly based on remarks or social media posts from President Donald Trump and his top advisors.

After a week of falling fortunes on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and S&P 500 hitting 2026 lows late last week, the stock market quickly regained momentum Monday following an early morning Truth Social post in which Trump touted “productive conversations” with Iran about an end to U.S. hostilities. In the post, Trump said he was postponing military strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure for five days. When markets opened for the week hours later, the Nasdaq, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 all gained more than a point. And Brent crude oil prices dropped from $108.26 to $93.85 following his post. The “relief rally” continued throughout the day, with many stocks closing higher and Brent crude prices staying below $100 a barrel.

Have these “productive conversations” actually happened? It’s unclear—Iran’s foreign ministry denied having talks with the U.S., claiming that Trump’s remarks were an effort to reduce energy prices and buy time. Considering that the desired outcome of the war is still in question, it could be the case. While this kind of short-term spike may be a boon for investors and traders, an actual, lasting change in the status quo is what businesses need to move forward with greater clarity.

Prices at the gas pump aren’t as immediately impacted by market fluctuations, and drivers are paying more. On Tuesday morning, average prices were nearly $3.98 a gallon, and analyst Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy said that was likely to cross the $4 mark within 24 hours.

Not surprisingly, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee opted last week to hold interest rates steady, mentioning in a statement that “implications of developments in the Middle East for the U.S. economy are uncertain.” Forbes senior contributor Simon Moore writes that the Fed is likely to continue to take a more careful look at the economic picture this year when setting interest rates.

After all, the Iran war and energy prices are just one big economic question mark. Another is tariffs. After last week’s meeting, Powell said that tariff inflation—consumer price increases due to new import taxes—typically takes between eight months and a year to affect consumers. And even though the Supreme Court has invalidated President Donald Trump's initial slate of tariffs, their impact may not have fully run its course.

Meanwhile, the National Retail Federation predicted last week that retail growth would reach 4.4% in 2026. Forbes senior contributor Pamela Danziger writes that in light of the current geopolitical and economic climate, the projection seems overly optimistic. The forecast says higher-income households will drive most of the growth, but Danziger writes that higher energy costs, shipping and commodity sourcing difficulties caused by the war, and falling consumer confidence—including greater financial risk for higher-income households—are likely to challenge retail growth.

Weeks after Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig said they planned to jointly announce regulations clarifying how federal securities and commodities laws apply to cryptocurrency, they were issued last week. The guidance basically breaks down five kinds of cryptocurrency assets and designates whether they are securities—and most actually are not, writes Forbes senior contributor Jason Brett. The guidance also explains how non-security crypto assets can be subject to an investment contract, and when that contract ends.

Even though this guidance is really just a document issued by executive branch leaders and doesn’t have the same permanence as legislation, Brett notes that it’s likely to be absorbed into the canon for classifying and working with cryptocurrency for the foreseeable future. After all, he writes, the SEC’s 2010 guidance on how companies should disclose climate change issues became widespread and closely followed corporate policy—even though the agency recently withdrew its defense of those rules under President Donald Trump.

Next on the docket for the CFTC is more clarity on prediction markets. Selig has said that they are considered events contracts, which the CFTC has regulated for decades. However, the recent popularity of prediction market betting websites, including Kalshi and Polymarket, have led to what Arizona described in a criminal lawsuit against Kalshi last week as “illegal gambling,” Brett writes. Last week, the CFTC opened up public comments on whether new prediction market regulations are needed.

Forbes contributor Nizan Geslevich Packin writes that today’s prediction markets are in a strange in-between position: Using financial terminology to define their operations, but being used more as places for people to make wagers on everything from elections to the Oscars. And for businesses, there’s the risk of insider trading: People in your company can make wagers on things like quarterly reports and not-yet-announced business moves.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Venture firm Paradigm and payments giant Stripe introduced a standard protocol to enable AI agents to pay for products and services on their own, writes Forbes’ Nina Bambysheva. Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) is needed because there are many moving parts in a transaction: requesting quotes, making payments from a digital wallet and, in the case of online service transactions, automatically starting the service. Bambysheva writes the MPP protocol is not the first on the market, but it’s designed from the outset for multiple forms of payment. A standard introduced last year by Coinbase and Cloudflare has so far mainly been used for stablecoin transactions.

As AI agents move into the mainstream, they are expected to handle many smaller and more routine transactions. McKinsey estimates agents will drive between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in annual commerce by 2030.

How To Turn Your Internal Tools Into Profits

Most companies use a combination of software to run smoothly. Some of that software is large enterprise suites, but some is custom-built by the company for specific uses—like product testing, specialized calculations or managing types of content. Damien Bullot is the vice president of software monetization at defense and cybersecurity company Thales, and works with companies that specialize in “hardware”—physical products—to turn their customized internal software into products to sell to customers in similar industries. Bullot told me this is an often-overlooked opportunity for revenue—and one that can drive more predictable sales as the global economy slows.

I spoke with Bullot about how CFOs can help their companies monetize what they’re already doing in a new way. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.

How can a CFO see these possibilities at their company?

Bullot: It’s not rocket science. Everybody’s going through this. An organization that is trying to grow must spend time trying to understand how they can better use what is on the track, and how they can better monetize what is on the track.

We see most organizations focusing on customer acquisition and customer retention, but I think often organizations underestimate what is possible with what already exists, and what could be monetized differently. What we do is often overlooked. When it is addressed, they also underestimate the potential.

The CFO is the best person to understand what is at stake and how much new revenue it can bring. It can be very transformative into an organization.

Do CFOs run into any problems trying to push this kind of strategy?

The main one is if you have a board or investors without a long-term vision. When you go in a transformation, you usually sacrifice some upfront revenue coming from the ‘hardware’ to create different revenue coming from software subscription. It’s when your investors are telling you, ‘Hey, you need to transform. We agree with the strategy, but we do not agree with a decline in your upfront revenue in the coming year.’

It takes a few months, and for some organizations a full year, to make this transformation, to build a business that’s recurring revenue through subscriptions. You need to have the full backup of your investors, and that’s the biggest challenge.

That’s where the CFO is critical: to reassure the investors, saying, ‘Maybe we’re going to have a decline in our revenue short term, but this is for the right reason because we are building a business that’s going to be much more predictable, more recurring, thanks to software monetization, thanks to subscriptions, thanks to user-based billing.’

If the CFO is keeping an eye on revenue potential, they also need to make sure that the infrastructure costs don’t get too high by bringing in technology built on an AI company’s services. In this day and age, can useful software be built and sold that doesn’t utilize AI?

People that are going in AI-first are usually coming from SaaS or this kind of technology, and think, I’m going to make a lot of money out of it. Then they realize that some big customers are going to kill their business model, their monetization. We encourage people to think properly in their monetization, and we propose to customers usually a hybrid model based on what they know—subscription and some usage—but not all on usage because the cost is going to be too high for them to be profitable.

You don’t need AI to be a successful company today. There are many organizations that are not yet embedding AI and are having a killing right now. All software will integrate some AI capabilities in the very near future, and this will require a different monetization strategy.

Database platform MongoDB appointed Ryan Mac Ban as its next chief revenue officer, effective April 27. Mac Ban joins the company from Confluent where he worked in the same role, and he will succeed Paul Capombassis.

Global mobility technology provider ECARX appointed Dylan D. Jeng as its new chief financial officer, effective March 23. Jeng previously held international financial leadership roles across the technology and pharmaceutical sectors.

Safety and security solutions firm Pavion appointed Abu Zeya as its new chief financial officer, effective March 2. Zeya joins the company from BrandSafway where he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer.

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