Rejected, and still at the table.

The most useful thing to come out of the weekend is not the refusal itself but the disclosure that accompanied it. For the first time we know what Iran is actually asking for in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz within seven days: an end to what Tehran describes as US acts of aggression, the lifting of the naval blockade and of economic warfare, and the release of Iranian assets. President Trump confirmed he had turned the proposal down — “They made a proposal but I rejected it” — and told Axios on Sunday that Iran had overplayed its hand, and that Washington might have agreed to something like these terms about a year ago. That last remark is his characterisation and we report it as such, but it is revealing in one respect: it frames the gap as a matter of price rather than of principle, and gaps about price are the kind that close.

Against that, Tehran says it is waiting for a definitive American response and will not soften its demands, and the strait remains blockaded. So the position this morning is a public refusal with both parties expecting to continue — almost exactly the base case we published yesterday, in which nothing ruptures and nothing resolves. Crude read it as mildly negative, rising in early Asian trade with Brent up 1.8% to $106.31 and US crude for November up 1.3% to $93.62. Note what that does to the gap between the two benchmarks: it widens again, to roughly $12.70. We have argued for a week that this spread is the cleanest available measure of Gulf risk, and it has now risen through a pipeline reopening, a flows recovery and a peace proposal. That is a market saying the physical problem is solved and the political one is not.

• Equities broke their run — the first weekly gain in six for the broader index.
• Long bonds made multi-decade highs — on American data, not on the Gulf.
• The benchmarks stayed split — and the spread widened again this morning.

Tap Week or YTD on each card. Week = 21–25 Sep; weekly and YTD figures are derived and approximate; commodity notes reflect this morning’s early Asian trade. Single names appear as news, not recommendations. Times GST.

These are the first scenarios written under yesterday’s refinement. Each carries a crude call and a separate, independent rate call, because last week proved they can move in opposite directions — oil supply improved while the 10-year reached a 2007 high. A scenario can now be half right, and we would rather be marked that way than pretend the two are one trade.

Times GST. Calendar items are scheduled events or watch-points and may change; geopolitical developments are fast-moving and accounts are often contested.

Publishing the terms changes the character of this negotiation, and for the region that is the development worth holding onto. Until the weekend, the Hormuz question was a matter of atmospherics: talks in final stages, deals close, meetings productive or postponed. We now have a list. Iran wants an end to what it calls US acts of aggression, the lifting of the naval blockade and of economic warfare, and the release of its assets; in return the strait opens at the end of seven days and talks restart. Washington has refused, and President Trump’s stated reasoning — that Iran has overplayed its hand, and that the US might have accepted something like this a year ago — is, by his own framing, an argument about how much the terms are worth rather than whether such terms are conceivable. Negotiations that are about price tend to continue. Both sides say they expect them to.

What has not moved is the water. The strait is still blockaded, the Salalah ministerial still has no date, and Gulf crude opened this week at a premium of roughly $12.70 over American crude — a gap that has now widened through a pipeline reopening, a flows recovery to four-fifths of pre-war levels and a published peace proposal. For regional exporters that is the number that matters: it is what the market charges for the risk attached to a cargo leaving the Arabian Gulf, and no amount of repaired infrastructure has brought it down.

Vault Wealth’s house view: unchanged, and comfortably so. We hold gold, the rate-side protection, and the residual energy position we reframed as a hedge against the war continuing rather than against barrels being stuck. The weekend is precisely what that position is for, and we will close it on a verified ceasefire or normal transit rather than on a proposal, a refusal or a resumed meeting. On rates we are holding protection with more conviction than a week ago: the 30-year at 5.488% is a domestic story, and we would repeat the point we made on Sunday because it matters more here than elsewhere — a Hormuz settlement would lift regional energy revenues and equity books and do almost nothing for the cost of borrowing in dollar-pegged economies. Those are two separate risks and, from this week, we are running two separate calls on them. Balanced, liquid, hedged, and watching the spread.