WTI front-month — 24-hour ratchet
$97.81 → $98.85 → $99.22 → $99.54 → $99.79. Five legs, each strictly above the last, on European liquidity slots.
Five WTI peaks above prior peaks across nine hours. The Polymarket Trump-announces-Hormuz-blockade contract dropped six percentage points in the same session.
$97.81 → $98.85 → $99.22 → $99.54 → $99.79. Five legs, each strictly above the last, on European liquidity slots.
$97.81 / 04:00 UTC. WTI’s first ratchet leg printed during the Tokyo session, hours after Secretary Rubio’s Monday afternoon “cannot normalize Iran having control of Hormuz” comment cleared American desks and reached Asian books. Five hours later WTI had printed four more legs — $98.85, $99.22, $99.54, $99.79 — each strictly higher than the last, on European-session liquidity. By London open the front-month had moved $1.98 in nine hours.
5.5%. The Polymarket “Trump announces U.S. blockade of Hormuz by April 30” contract carried $364,000 of cumulative volume into the ratchet sequence. It started Monday evening at 11.5%. It cleared London open at 5.5%. The contract dropped six percentage points while the front-month rallied $1.98 on the same news.
11.5% Monday evening → 5.5% London open. $364,000 cumulative volume. Resolves April 30.
$4.97. The WTI-Brent spread compressed to a five-day low as WTI broke fresh highs at $99.79 and Brent capped at $104.82 on its fifth attempt at the level. WTI absorbs the U.S.-policy-trade flow; Brent absorbs the European-refining-margin reality. The spread is now the cleanest cross-venue read on which side of the Iran narrative is being priced harder.
6-3. The Bank of Japan held at 0.75% with three dissents for a 1.00% hike — more hawkish than the 8-1 base case Reuters had polled. Core CPI for fiscal 2026 was revised to 2.8% from 1.9%, a 90-basis-point upward revision. USD/JPY printed a 73-pip round trip in four hours: 159.50 pre-statement, 158.95 on the hawkish-hold flash, 159.69 on Governor Ueda’s “timing of the next interest rate hike remains difficult to gauge.”
159.50 pre-statement → 158.95 hawkish-hold low → 159.69 dovish-presser high. Net move into the European morning: yen 6 pips weaker than where it started.
99.5%. Kalshi’s “Federal Reserve holds at April 2026” contract closed Monday at 99.5% on $6.26 million of cumulative volume. It moved zero through Tokyo open, the BoJ flash, the Iran-rejection cascade, the Ueda dovish tail, and the U.S.-versus-Europe equity divergence. Wednesday’s FOMC announcement is a non-event for the contract; it is not a non-event for the books on either side of the certainty — $4.36 million parked on a 25-bp surprise hike, $3.07 million parked on a 50-bp surprise cut, both at 0.05% probability, both still adding volume.
0.35%. The Polymarket contract on Hormuz traffic returning to normal by the end of April carries $721,000 of cumulative volume at 0.35% probability. The market priced that question shut on Friday afternoon. WTI has rallied another 4% since.