Oil prices went up. Shocking development for a commodity that moves every single day. Brent crude futures rose. WTI rose. Both did the thing they do constantly regardless of geopolitical events, economic data, or whether Jupiter is in retrograde.
The catalyst this time was a report of an Iranian attack on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz. That narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 21 million barrels of oil pass daily. The same chokepoint that has been a geopolitical flashpoint since before most retail traders were born. The same location that generates these exact headlines every eighteen months like clockwork.
Traders saw the news and bought oil futures because apparently this time it means something. This time the supply disruption is real. This time the risk premium is justified. Never mind that oil was already going to move today because it always moves. Never mind that technical levels, positioning, and dollar strength matter infinitely more than whether some tankers got hit in a waterway where tankers getting hit is practically a regional tradition.
Some guy in Ohio just refreshed his Robinhood account fourteen times trying to figure out how to buy oil. He cannot buy oil. He can buy USO, which is not oil. He will buy USO. He will check it again in forty minutes and feel like a geopolitical strategist because the line moved up. Tomorrow it will move down and he will tweet about manipulation.
Iran attacked ships. Oil went up. These two things happened in sequence. One may have caused the other or they both may have happened for completely unrelated reasons and your pattern-seeking monkey brain connected them because that is what monkey brains do. Either way, check your charts next week when oil is back exactly where it started and the Strait of Hormuz is still the Strait of f*cking Hormuz.
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