Commodity Compass Weekly

It's a short week heading into the Fourth of July weekend and the markets treated it accordingly, with lower volume and decisive price moves driven more by a macro narrative than fresh data. The Iran deal remains unsigned. Supreme Leader Khamenei has not publicly committed. But the cumulative weight of optimism across the past six weeks haspushed WTI down nearly thirty percent from its monthly...

The dominant force on the board this week didn't come from a commodity market at all — it came from the AI trade, and the doubt that suddenly crept into it. On Tuesday, a wave of selling hit the semiconductor and memory names that have led this market all year. Micron fell double digits, Marvell, Sandisk, and Arm dropped sharply alongside it, and even Nvidia gave up around four percent. The te...

Kevin Warsh held his first press conference as Chair of the Federal Reserve, and he used the debut to push back against the market's expectation of summer rate cuts. The read coming out of that room was unmistakably hawkish — a Fed in no hurry to ease, signaling that it intends to keep policy tight until it is convinced the inflation fight is finished. The dollar firmed in response, real yield...

This week brought the most substantive Iran deal developments since the conflict began. Axios, which hasbeen the primary source of White House leak intelligence throughout the Hormuz crisis, published a detailed walkthrough of the MOU text on Thursday night. According to a diplomat from one of the mediating countries, the U.S. and Iran have agreed on language that calls for the Strait of Hormuz to...

Friday's May employment report landed above expectations across the board — stronger job creation, a tight unemployment rate, and wage growth that gives the Federal Reserve no reason to move toward rate cuts. The reaction was immediate: yields rose sharply, the dollar strengthened, and equity and commodity markets sold off hard. The Nasdaqdropped more than four and a half percent on the day. G...

This week's defining event arrived not from the strait but from the negotiating table. Reports of a U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding on a framework for talks set off the mostsignificant single-week oil price decline since this crisis began — WTI broke below one hundred dollars for the first time in weeks and ended the week at $87.76, down more than nine percent. Brent settled at $91.70, d...

Three supertankers carrying an estimated six million barrels of crude transited the Strait of Hormuz this week — cargos bound for Japan and China, the first to move through the strait since the conflict began. Japan, whose crude imports from the Middle East had fallen to their lowest level on record, is now welcoming its first Gulf cargo since the war started. This is not a reopening. Normal Hormu...

Last week on this show, we talked about the divergence — equities at all-time highs while commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz had gone to zero. We called it one of the more remarkable macro contradictions in recent commodity history. This week, the underlying tension finally resolved — and it resolved violently.

The Hormuz crisis entered new territory this week. AIS vessel-tracking data from MarineTraffic confirmed what many had feared was approaching: commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped to zero. Not diverted around the Cape of Good Hope. Not delayed. Zero transits in the past twenty-four hours. The strait that normally moves approximately twenty percent of the world’s seaborne oil...

This week, one of the most significant institutional developments of the Hormuz crisis arrived not with a missile strike or a diplomatic announcement — but with a formal letter. On April 28th, the United Arab Emirates announced its withdrawal from OPEC and the broader OPEC-plus alliance, effective today, May 1st. The UAE joined the organization in 1967. It has now left. The country produces roughl...

The Strait of Hormuz stalemate is now entering its ninth week, and the numbers are becoming staggering. Thirteen million barrels per day remain shut in. Cumulative supply losses have now surpassed six hundred and fifty million barrels — roughly seven days of total global consumption, gone from the market since the conflict began. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seized two vessels this week, following a...

If last week was the ceasefire that wasn’t, this week was the reopening that wasn’t. The U.S. Navy opened the week by announcing a blockade of Iranian ports and mine-clearing operations in the Strait. Oil rebounded sharply — Brent pushed back toward $99 — as the Islamabad talks between U.S. and Iranian officials collapsed midweek and the supply disruption narrative hardened.

This week’s commodity story came in two acts. Act one: Wednesday, April 8th. President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran, with Tehran agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as a condition. Act two: the breakdown. The ceasefire began unraveling almost immediately. Pakistan’s Prime Minister announced it covered all fronts including Lebanon — Trump and Netanyahu...

This was the week the Iran war moved from a supply shock to something closer to an existential market event. Four things happened, and every one of them lands on Monday. April 6th is shaping up to be one of the more consequential market opens in recent memory.

This week’s commodity story came down to three data points, and none of them were bullish for a resolution. Iran’s IRGC turned back two Chinese-flagged vessels — CSCL Indian Ocean and CSCL Arctic Ocean — owned by China’s state shipping giant, less than 48 hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi publicly promised safe passage to ships from five friendly nations, China among them. That promise...

Commodity markets were driven by one overwhelming reality this week: the Middle East conflict moved from a war narrative to an energy system story. After earlier strikes on Iranian infrastructure, the week was defined by the widening fallout — attacks spread across major oil and gas sites in the Gulf, Iraq declared force majeure on foreign-operated oilfields, and the commercial viability of shippi...

This week, commodity markets traded under the shadow of a single question: what happens if the Strait of Hormuz becomes a battlefield? After last week’s U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the story shifted from the initial shock to the consequences. Through the week, Iran stepped up threats against shipping lanes in the Gulf while the U.S. and its allies moved additional naval assets into the regio...

The commodity complex was thrown into one of the most geopolitically charged environments we’ve seen in years this week. Joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets escalated tensions across the Middle East and immediately forced markets to reprice risk. The Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supply normally moves—saw shipping slow dramatically, with insurers pull...

This was a week where volatility wasn’t random — it had a trigger. The release of the Citrini report sent shockwaves through high-multiple tech names, reigniting questions around valuation, liquidity sensitivity, and just how fragile the AI-led equity rally might be. That pressure in growth stocks quickly bled into broader risk sentiment, and by midweek the tape felt defensive rather than euphoric...

This week was a headline trader’s market. The Supreme Court’s decision to take up challenges related to presidential tariff authority reintroduced uncertainty around trade policy, and that uncertainty rippled through metals and energy. At the same time, renewed U.S. military movements in the Middle East — including repositioning of naval assets — injected a fresh geopolitical risk premium into cru...

This week, commodities traded in a market that was recalibrating fast. U.S. inflation data came in cooler than expected, reinforcing the disinflation trend and sending Treasury yields lower across the curve. That drop in rates, paired with a generally weaker U.S. dollar, created a supportive backdrop for hard assets and rate-sensitive commodities. Broadly speaking, the commodity complex leaned con...

This week’s commodity session was driven by whiplash volatility across risk assets, with early-week caution giving way to sharp reversals as traders recalibrated macro expectations into Friday. U.S. labor signals helped set the tone: ADP showed just 22,000 private-sector jobs added in January, well below expectations, while weekly jobless claims jumped more than expected, with snowstorms cited as...

This week was defined by a violent correction in precious metals, with both gold and silver pulling back hard after months of relentless upside, as profit-taking, a stronger U.S. dollar, and shifting rate expectations triggered one of the largest weekly drawdowns we’ve seen this cycle. A major macro headline hanging over markets was the growing buzz that Kevin Warsh is President Trump’s preferred...

This week felt like a classic rotation trade: precious metals higher, base metals mixed, and energy chopping around as geopolitics and capital flows drove the tape. Gold and silver caught a strong bid as tensions around Greenland cooled, removing some near-term geopolitical risk but paradoxically pushing investors back into monetary hedges rather than hard-risk assets. Commentary from the World Ec...

This week’s commodity price action was defined by a dramatic mix of geopolitical risk and shifting macro data that set the tone early — only for sentiment to fade into Friday’s close. Markets opened the week with heightened tensions in Iran, including new confrontations and sanctions headlines that briefly lifted energy and safe-haven commodities on fears of supply disruption in the Middle East. T...