Reports from US and Iranian media on Friday described new military activity near the Strait of Hormuz. A Fox News reporter on X said the US military carried out new airstrikes at several empty tankers that were trying to break a blockade.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Mehr news agency said an explosion was heard in Sirik, a port city near the Strait of Hormuz. No official explanation had been given at the time of the report.<\/p>\n
Markets were awaiting official statements from Washington or Tehran, as attention stayed on the risk of further escalation. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 2.83% on Friday to $91.90 at the time of writing.<\/p>\n
Given the military actions near the Strait of Hormuz, the market’s reaction is unusual. Typically, such escalations would cause a spike in oil prices, but instead, WTI crude is down. This disconnect suggests traders are more worried about broader economic weakness than an immediate supply disruption.<\/p>\n
We should anticipate a sharp increase in implied volatility in the coming days. This means options on crude oil futures and ETFs like the USO will become more expensive as uncertainty grows. Traders can respond by buying volatility through strategies like long straddles, which profit from a large price move in either direction.<\/p>\n
The price drop is likely linked to recent economic data, as the market seems to be weighing demand destruction more heavily than supply risk. For example, the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) data shows that US crude inventories unexpectedly rose by 1.8 million barrels last week, against forecasts of a draw. This builds on a trend of softer-than-expected global demand figures that we’ve seen through the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n
This situation is very different from what we’ve seen in the past. For instance, after the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities in September 2019, Brent crude prices surged by as much as 19% in a single day. The current muted, and even negative, price action shows a fundamental shift in market focus toward the demand side of the equation.<\/p>\n
Looking back at the brief supply scare in late 2025, we saw a similar pattern where an initial price spike quickly faded as high global inventory levels calmed the market. It appears traders are now pricing in a significant cushion against this kind of disruption, at least for now. For the coming weeks, the falling price and rising volatility make buying out-of-the-money call options an interesting play, as they provide a relatively cheap way to bet on a sharp reversal should the conflict escalate over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US, Iranian media report activity near Hormuz; alleged US airstrikes, explosion in Sirik; oil falls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"josephine","author_link":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/author\/josephine\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}