Hormuz or Bust: Oil Above $108 and Wall Street Is Finally Pricing In the Apocalypse

Let's be blunt: the market spent weeks sleeping on this conflict like it was a long weekend drama, and now Brent crude has surged ~48% since late February, printing above $108/barrel. Macquarie is out here calmly warning of $200/barrel if the Strait of Hormuz stays shut through June — which, by the way, handles roughly 20% of global oil flows. That's not a tail risk. That's the dog.

A Bloomberg Podcasts deep-dive this week nailed the part everyone's underpricing: it's not just oil. Gulf petrodollar recycling has historically suppressed US interest rates by funneling sovereign wealth back into Treasuries and tech. Disrupt that flow, and suddenly the bond market has a whole new problem. Spanish gas utility $ENGAS — wait, that's Madrid-listed — but domestically, energy infrastructure plays and defense names are the obvious beneficiaries. Meanwhile, a network of linked Polymarket accounts reportedly made nearly $1 million betting on the precise timing of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, which is either brilliant geopolitical research or something the SEC's international desk should probably read about.

Trump extended his deadline on Iranian energy strikes by 10 days, the Senate passed a DHS funding deal at 2am, and the UK's Starmer called an emergency economic meeting — because nothing says "stable global order" like three simultaneous crises before your morning coffee.