Hormuz traffic collapsed. Brent barely moved.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed on Thursday. Large vessels broadcasting their position all but vanished from the southern corridor, tanker transits fell to roughly ten against something like ninety on a normal day, and war-risk insurance rates climbed as some underwriters told owners to pause voyages. Brent barely moved. It held around $76, about $4 above where it traded before the crisis and well short of a genuine supply-shock price. The market is treating the disruption as temporary.

That does not mean the war premium vanished. It migrated. Refined products carried the stress crude would not: US diesel margins spiked to multi-year highs even as crude slipped, and the refining spread on a barrel ran far above where it began the year. The premium is sitting in the fuel and the freight more than in the crude benchmark.

Precious metals traded the macro channel rather than the war. Gold climbed back above $4,100 on Thursday as the dollar eased, then slipped Friday and was still lower on the week as the oil move revived inflation and rate-hike worries. Silver did the same, ending in the high $50s. The bounce and the fade both ran through the dollar and the rate calendar, which is the tell.

One honest caveat. The read that metals track the rate calendar rather than the kinetic tempo is a lens, and it has to keep earning its keep rather than explain every session after the fact. The next real test is the June CPI release on July 14; any sustained oil shock would land in later prints rather than this one.

For paying subscribers below: the full brief with data. A physical-oil dashboard tracking where the premium actually sits, every sector with current levels and the markers that would confirm or weaken each call, Japan’s new push to pull pension capital home, the conflict snapshot, and full sources.