Markets reopened Monday for the first time since Thursday, with a long weekend of news to price in one session. The standout: shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is genuinely thinning out. Vessel transits fell sharply over the weekend, far below the normal daily pace, after Iran declared the waterway shut. For weeks this risk lived as a threat on paper. Now it is showing up in the transit data.
And yet crude barely flinched. Oil opened only a touch higher and stayed well under the level that would tell you the market believes the disruption will last. A confirmed chokepoint snarl that does not move the oil price is the single most telling thing about Monday's tape. Either traders expect the closure to be brief, or the world is carrying too much spare oil for a Hormuz scare to bite. Where the weekend stress did land was metals: gold and silver both caught a haven bid on the reopen.
The diplomacy cut both ways inside one news cycle. Sunday's Geneva session produced a road map toward a final deal, while hours earlier the US president threatened to resume bombing and "collect tolls" on Hormuz, and Iran briefly walked out of talks. One caveat to hold: this week brings the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, and a firm dollar is already leaning against every haven trade. So read the metals bid as a start, with a test still ahead.
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