Rising tempo of combat in battle for Hormuz tests market’s confidence that the worst is over on Iran

Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average fell 100 points, or 0.19%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.27%, and Nasdaq futures lost 0.48%.

U.S. oil futures rose 3.2% to $73.70 a barrel, while Brent crude also climbed 3.2% to $78.45. Gold dropped 0.7% to $4,085 per ounce.

Bob McNally, founder and president of Rapidan Energy, told CNN that crude oil markets have been “blowing off this geopolitical risk for years” and described Sunday’s rise in prices as “pretty tame.”

Traders are confident that the worst of the Hormuz conflict is over and see the beginnings of a recovery in ship crossings as well as oil production around the Gulf, he explained, adding that the stock market hasn’t cared about Iran since April.

“So there’s a lot of complacency, a lot of confidence, built into the market right now about oil,” McNally, a former White House energy adviser, said. 

On Sunday evening, U.S. Central Command announced yet another set of strikes on Iran, aimed at “degrading their ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

It marked the fifth round of attacks in the past week and the third over the last 24 hours, signaling that the operational tempo is quickening.

The latest wave came after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted a commercial ship, prompting U.S. forces to intercept an Iranian missile and drone.

Earlier on Sunday, the U.S. conducted a “few strikes” on Iranian missile and air-defense systems as well as small boats around the strait.

Before then, U.S. forces had already hit 300 targets over three prior rounds, with Saturday alone seeing 140 targets bombed, including missile and drone sites, naval capabilities, ammunition storage facilities, communication networks, and coastal surveillance locations, Central Command said.

For its part, Iran has paired its attacks on commercial ships with salvos against its Gulf Arab neighbors, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman.

Iran has argued that the memorandum of understanding signed with the U.S. last month gives it authority to regulate ship traffic and has attacked ships that are not using a regime-backed corridor that runs along the Iranian coast.

But the U.S. has demanded that freedom of navigation in Hormuz must be fully restored and established an alternate corridor that hugs Oman’s coast. Since early May, U.S. forces have helped more than 800 commercial vessels and 400 million barrels of crude oil transit the strait.

The standoff has fueled increasingly violent skirmishes as Iran seeks to preserve its main source of leverage, namely the ability to effectively shut down Hormuz traffic.

For Sal Mercogliano, a Campbell University professor who specializes in military and maritime history, the recent combat was an ominous sign, as he called the ceasefire a “facade.”

“And it’s been a facade for quite a while,” he said on a YouTube post on Sunday. “And one of the things I fear is that we’re finding ourselves in this undeclared naval war. And an undeclared naval war can escalate.”