[MARKET ANALYSIS] Oil futures continue to pull back from this week's best levels after Trump announced they will not attack Iran at any time before the Midterms

This is the familiar mechanics of the geopolitical risk premium draining out of the front of the crude curve rather than any shift in physical balances: when a sitting US president publicly rules out military action against a producer with export relevance, the premium built into flat price and prompt spreads has historically unwound gradually over sessions rather than in a single gap, which matches the slow bleed described here. Episodes of this kind tend to leave the market overshooting on the downside only when supply had never actually been disrupted, since there is no lost volume to restore, just insurance value to strip. Verbal assurances of this type are cheap to issue and cheap to reverse, and prior cycles show the premium rebuilding quickly on any contradictory reporting or proxy escalation, so the durability of the move rests on whether the described discussions produce anything concrete. The tells are in the structure rather than the headline print: prompt timespreads, options skew and freight or insurance costs on relevant routes carry the residual risk pricing more faithfully than flat price. The cross-asset picture, gold and copper firmer on lower yields and a softer dollar, reads as a separate macro impulse running alongside the crude move rather than confirmation of it. Worth distinguishing whether any further downside is premium erosion or the market re-engaging with the underlying inventory and balances picture, which has been the point at which these unwinds have historically stalled.