#OilEdgesHigher

Oil is edging higher again even as the US-Iran ceasefire ink is barely dry. Brent touched $101 a barrel Thursday after the Strait of Hormuz remained effectively closed to shipping traffic — meaning the ceasefire deal calmed the headlines but not the actual supply bottleneck.

The IEA had already flagged this coming into April, warning that supply constraints would intensify through the month. And they were right. Prices ran from the mid-$90s at the start of the week straight back through the $100 threshold, with the supply side doing most of the heavy lifting.

What makes this move interesting is the divergence playing out in broader markets. Equities have been climbing on ceasefire optimism while oil refuses to follow the same relief narrative. The market is essentially pricing two different outcomes at once — peace on paper, disruption in practice.

For anyone with energy exposure, the setup is worth watching closely. If Hormuz reopens and traffic normalizes, you get a swift unwind back toward the mid-$90s or lower, given forecasts already pointing to a potential dip below $80 later in 2026. But if the closure drags, $110-$120 becomes a realistic conversation again.

The broader ripple effects are already showing up in transport costs — airlines, cruise lines, logistics all starting to price in the elevated fuel environment. That is the second-order trade that often gets overlooked when the headline is just about crude.