Eighty per cent, and we start reducing.

A stated trigger is only worth something if it is honoured when it fires, including when honouring it is less comfortable than repeating it. Ours has been unchanged for three weeks: cargoes moving, sustained, rather than plans, timetables or diplomatic language. What is now reported is not a plan. It is volumes at roughly four-fifths of pre-war levels, achieved partly through a physical workaround — ship-to-ship transfers offshore — that does not depend on the strait being safe or the pipeline being fixed. Add a reported softening in Washington’s posture toward both Yemen and Tehran, and the supply case that justified a full energy hedge has weakened materially. So we are reducing it. Not closing it: Brent is still above $100, the strait is still blockaded, the Salalah talks still have no date, and the attribution of the pipeline attack is still disputed. This is a step, taken on evidence, in the direction the evidence points.

• Oil led the session — US crude down 4.5% to $95.78, its first settle below $100 since the pipeline was struck.
• Yields followed — the 10-year easing to about 4.97%, tracking crude almost exactly.
• Equities took the relief — the Nasdaq closing at a record on a chip and AI rally.

Equity figures are Monday 21 Sep’s close; rate and commodity levels are the latest available and approximate. Single names appear as news, not recommendations. Times GST.

The detail that matters most this morning is operational rather than diplomatic. Saudi Arabia has been conducting offshore ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, loading cargoes onto buyers’ tankers without requiring those vessels to sail deep into the Arabian Gulf and through the most dangerous stretch of water in the world. Combined with rising transits and the pipeline bypass work, that has lifted flows from the broader Middle East to a reported four-fifths of pre-war levels. This is the difference between a blockade that stops oil and a blockade that merely makes moving it expensive and awkward. One assessment goes further, suggesting that absent a major escalation Iran may have lost notable leverage in the strait. We report that view because it is a serious one, but we would not yet build on it: the strait is still closed to normal traffic, the Salalah ministerial still has no date, Saudi–Houthi tensions continue, and the attribution of the pipeline attack itself remains disputed. Adaptation is not resolution.

Vault Wealth’s house view — a change: we are beginning to reduce the energy leg of the hedge today. We have said for three weeks that our trigger was confirmed, sustained flows rather than plans or statements, and it would be poor discipline to name a test, watch it be met, and then find a reason to keep waiting. Flows at roughly 80% of pre-war levels, achieved through a physical workaround that does not depend on the strait reopening or the pipeline being repaired, is the evidence we asked for. So we trim, partially and deliberately. What we are keeping and why: the gold position stays, because it hedges the rate path rather than the oil price; the protection added a fortnight ago stays, because a 10-year at 4.97% and sixteen of eighteen Fed participants expecting another rise is not a benign rate backdrop; and we retain a residual energy position, because Brent is still above $100 and one good week does not unwind a seven-month war. What would make us reverse today’s decision: any renewed strike on export infrastructure, or evidence that the 80% figure was a peak rather than a trajectory. Clients holding portfolios with us will see this expressed as a modest de-risking of the commodity overlay, not a change of stance. We remain balanced, liquid and hedged — just less heavily on the one leg where the facts have genuinely improved.