The strikes resumed. The market tried to move on.

The question this morning was whether the war would close once honor was served. Khamenei is being buried in Mashhad today, and the tidy version of this conflict had both sides stepping back after the funeral. That version took a hit overnight. The US ran a second consecutive night of strikes on Iran, hitting the Bushehr nuclear complex and a string of southern ports, and Iran again sent fire toward Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. A second night of strikes says the war did not close. The tape traded as if it had.

That is the through-line today: the fighting escalated and risk assets recovered anyway. Equity futures opened green as the story rotated back to AI, and Brent gave back part of Wednesday's jump. The one asset that used to move on war headlines did not. Gold and silver fell for a second straight session, with the haven bid going to the dollar instead. There is a complication under that: the Federal Reserve minutes landed hawkish the day before, so today's metals weakness has two possible authors, the war that produced no bid and a fresh rate scare. The oil spike reaches Tokyo as well, where a weaker yen makes imported energy dearer and rising Japanese bond yields tighten the Bank of Japan's bind.

One honest caveat. The morning's calm was not clean. The same futures that opened higher turned two-sided as Treasury yields pushed to a four-week high and oil stayed firm, so "war jitters ease" read as a headline rather than a settled verdict. And the burial is today, which means the "did they stop after the funeral" test is not fully resolved. A longer bounded exchange is still on the table.

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