Brent crude climbed back above $90 a barrel as the United States and Iran traded fresh strikes across the Gulf, reversing weeks of relative calm.
The U.S. military struck rocket launchers on Iran's Larak Island on Sunday. Centcom said the equipment was being prepared to launch sea mines. Iran responded within hours, bombing American military bases in Jordan — the first such attack since late July.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reported that a tanker was disabled after striking two sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian media reported that the vessel had not followed Iran's rules for transiting the strait.
President Trump escalated the rhetoric, posting an AI-generated video on Truth Social depicting 'Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!' Kharg is the terminal through which Iran exports 90% of its oil.
Oil's rise came even as Trump announced a separate deal he framed as expanding American energy supply. The president wrote that the U.S. had 'secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer,' calling it a 'Historic Transaction' that 'MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves' and would 'substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans.'
A U.S. official told CBS News the agreement gives the U.S. government a 55% stake in a joint venture with an unnamed private operator in Venezuela. Experts cited by CBS News expressed skepticism, saying new supplies would likely take months or years to come online.
Markets, meanwhile, kept climbing. The S&P 500 is up 12.65% year to date, and J.P. Morgan Private Bank's Kriti Gupta and Nick Roberts called the second-quarter earnings season 'exceptional.' Revenue across the index grew 16% year-over-year and earnings growth is 'approaching a 52% rise,' they said, adding that 'investors have yet to fully reward' the underlying fundamentals — stocks are technically cheaper now than a year ago because valuations haven't kept pace with the earnings surge.
Michael Hartnett and his colleagues said Trump's declining approval ratings will eventually force him to find an end to the Iran war.
The numbers come first, and they tell two stories at once: Brent crude spiking on missile strikes and mined tankers, and the S&P 500 grinding higher on earnings growth Wall Street itself concedes it hasn't fully priced in. A 55% government stake in Venezuelan reserves, structured at no cost to the taxpayer, is the kind of energy diplomacy free-market conservatives can back — provided it survives scrutiny and delivers the barrels it promises rather than another open-ended entanglement.
Capital rewards clear rules, even in wartime. The market has already voted that American earnings power can absorb a Gulf conflict; the open question is whether Washington's approach to Venezuela and Iran keeps rewarding producers and consumers, or simply adds another layer of geopolitical risk investors must price around.
