Chokepoint Data · the Strait of Hormuz crisis

The market stopped pricing peace

Each successive deal moved oil less: -11.6% → -0.2% by the signed memorandum.

Published 2026-08-11 · analysis

ReversalThe market has stopped paying for peace: the first ceasefire moved oil -11.6%, the signed memorandum that ended the war moved it -0.2%.

Each successive "deal" moved oil less. The first ceasefire agreement (2026-04-08) moved Brent -11.6% by the next close — a bigger one-day move than 99.1% of all pre-crisis trading days since 2019. The signed memorandum 10 weeks later (2026-06-17) moved it -0.2% — an ordinary day. Anticipation explains part of it (earlier headlines absorb the move); the collapse of the first two deals explains the rest.

DateBrent next closevs pre-crisis daysBrent +7dConfounds
1st deal (two-week ceasefire)2026-04-08-11.6%bigger than 99.1%-16.8%1 †
2nd deal (Islamabad MoU)2026-06-17-0.2%bigger than 8.5%-10.4%3 †
3rd deal (Oman talks)2026-08-05+0.2%bigger than 8.5%+7.9%none

† Attribution caveat: 20 of 26 major events have another major event inside their ±7-day window, so 7-day reactions are not attributable to a single event. Percentiles rank each move's size against 1796 pre-crisis trading days (2019-01-01 to 2026-01-31 — a window that itself contains COVID, Ukraine, and the June 2025 war).

Open this piece in the interactive site (charts, timeline, related events) →

Computed, not asserted — every number here is derived from public data: official EIA Brent closes via FRED, IMF PortWatch transit counts, Polymarket and Kalshi odds, and source-linked curated events. Method and caveats · Atom feed · llms.txt

https://chokepointdata.com/analysis/market-stopped-pricing-peace/