Brent closed Friday at $101.29 a barrel after the U.S.-Iran exchange around Hormuz, keeping the war premium above the $100 floor even as both contracts posted weekly losses. CNBC reported that U.S. forces fired on two empty Iranian tankers, Iran fired again at the UAE, and Trump insisted the ceasefire remained in effect. [1]

The May 8 paper said the $100 Brent floor had become the Day Two receipt of tanker fire. Trading Economics captured the market's split: diplomacy hopes pulled prices down, but fresh clashes and the difficulty of restoring normal Hormuz flows kept Brent above $100. [2]

MSM calls that volatility. X calls it manipulation or policy failure. The cleaner reading is that the market is no longer pricing a deal headline alone; it is pricing whether tankers can move safely enough for insurers, refiners and shipowners to believe the headline.

-- DARA OSEI, London