[MARKET ANALYSIS] Oil futures climbed higher after further Saudi-Houthi strikes, while US and Iran both asserted their control over the Strait of Hormuz

Geopolitical risk premia in crude follow a well-worn sequence: rhetoric and limited strikes first lift the flat price and the front of the curve, while the more durable move comes only when physical flows are actually impeded. The distinction that has mattered in past Gulf episodes is between assertion and interruption: competing claims of control over the Strait of Hormuz have been a recurring feature of tension cycles without transit being halted, and it is the roughly one-fifth share of global seaborne crude passing the strait that makes even low-probability tail scenarios expensive to hedge. The tells that have historically separated noise from escalation are tanker traffic through the strait, war-risk insurance and freight rates, and any direct hit on production or export infrastructure rather than on military targets; Saudi-Houthi exchanges have on previous occasions spiked prices sharply only when they touched energy facilities, with premia bleeding out quickly otherwise. The reported Trump-Netanyahu discussion of a major operation against Iran, followed by a public denial of any pre-election strike, fits the familiar pattern of headline-driven spikes fading as the political constraint reasserts itself. The divergent tape is itself the established signature: gold flat and directionless into US CPI rather than bid alongside crude, and copper choppy, indicates a geopolitical premium layered onto a market still anchored to the data calendar rather than a broad risk-off regime. Worth watching are whether the timespreads firm with the flat price, a sign of genuine prompt tightness, and any movement in shipping costs through the Gulf.