The oil market has found its daily ritual: count the ships. Fortune's Sunday report, built on Kpler tracking, logged nineteen vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz in either direction on Saturday against thirteen along the Omani route Friday, numbers that moved desks more than any communiqué this week. [1]

The counts carry caveats their consumers often skip. Only observed transits make the tally, and many masters sail dark with transponders off specifically to evade attention, so each figure self-admits incompleteness. One Suezmax crude carrier surfaced in the Gulf of Oman Sunday after last broadcasting from inside the Persian Gulf Saturday, a crossing that will enter the statistics only retroactively if at all. [1]

Still, the receipts beat the rhetoric. Western navies call the threat substantial, Iran insists on its authorized route, and diplomats promise frameworks, yet Brent trades off hull positions and AIS gaps. When official language and ship behavior diverge, desks trust the ships. That discipline is why the U-turns hit sentiment harder than any statement, and why Sunday's return to Oman-side transits read as genuine recovery rather than spin.

Watch Monday's count. Two strong sessions would reprice war risk faster than any minister can.

-- PRIYA SHARMA, Delhi