July 20, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
U.S. gasoline prices at the pump climbed back above the $4-a-gallon mark as the Middle East conflict intensified. Regular unleaded gasoline averaged $4.003 a gallon, according to daily prices posted by the American Automobile Association. Diesel has once again climbed above $5 a gallon.Heating oil futures jumped as much as 3.4% on Monday. For now, the strain on American households isn’t yet as bad as it was in May, when average pump prices were in excess of $4.50 a gallon. But there’s a good chance that things will get worse from here. Because this isn’t simple a replay of earlier stages in the oil price spike.
July 20, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
“The Houthis, the Iran-backed armed faction in Yemen, said they would impose a blockade on Saudi ships entering and leaving the Red Sea, threatening to open a new front in the Middle East conflict and raising the pressure on volatile global energy markets.
July 18, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is claiming that two oil tankers hit mines and exploded south of the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military is publicly denying that this actually happened. And no independent source has been able to confirm the sinking. Does the truth still matter in this war? Or is it now enough to merely announce an attack in order to paralyze oil traffic in the Strait?
July 13, 2026 | Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Higher oil prices. Greater odds of an interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve.
Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz plummeted after Iran’s attack on a Cypriot-flagged container ship on Saturday set off an exchange of strikes with the United States. Just 14 ships passed through the waterway on Sunday in both directions, the fewest in a month, according to Kpler, a maritime data firm. Of those ships, only three were tankers exiting the Persian Gulf laden with crude oil, chemicals or other commodities, and all three were shadow or sanctioned vessels. Before the start of the war in late February, an average of more than 130 vessels transited the Strait daily. In mid-June, when the United States and Iran signed a preliminary agreement to reopen the strait, traffic spiked. In the seven days starting June 20, nearly 400 ships moved through the strait, the highest number in a one-week period since the war began. But hopes for a recovery in shipping quickly faded with renewed attacks on ships by Iran.
July 6, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Saudi Arabia made big reductions to its main crude oil price for buyers in Asia, selling barrels at a discount for the first time since it embarked on a price war in 2020, as a surge of global supply heightens competition to find buyers. State producer Saudi Aramco will lower Arab Light oil for next month by $11 a barrel to $1.50 below the regional benchmark, according to a price list published Monday. The last two times it sold the grade at a discount were during price wars in 2020 and 2015, while it marks the largest monthly reduction in official selling prices since at least 2000.
July 5, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Oil. Again. Talks between the U.S. and Iran on ending their war have unleashed a wave of supply, overwhelming demand from buyers and prompting talk of a glut of crude.
It’s a staggering turnaround: less than three months ago the world’s main physical oil benchmark hit an all-time high, and only a few weeks ago senior industry executives were warning that global inventories were reaching critically low levels. Today U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate trades at $69 a barrel and international benchmark Brent crude trades at $ 72. Brent crude futures have erased all their wartime gains–tumbling 43% from a high in late April–while the physical oil market is flashing signs of weakness more extreme than any time since the demand collapse of Covid.
June 28, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Last week West Texas Intermediate crude closed just below $70 a barrel on hopes that the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz was returning to something like its pre-war level and that the United States and Iran were stumbling toward a peace agreement. Since then the U.S. and Iran have traded attacks targeting each other’s military infrastructure. In the latest barrage on Sunday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it launched missiles and drones at the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait and the 5th Fleet naval base in Salman Port, Bahrain. Kuwait said it intercepted two missiles and there was no material damage or injuries. Bahrain reported a residential building had been hit, but said there were no fatalities. The tit-for-tat assaults began Thursday with the Islamic Republic striking a container ship, prompting Washington to hit Iran the following day. The U.S. struck again overnight Saturday, after Tehran attacked a vessel carrying Qatari oil. Talks over the details of a memorandum of understanding to end the conflict are expected to resume this week.
May 7, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The global buffer to oil shortages from the Iran war made up of all the oil in tankers that had left the Strait of Hormuz before fighting started has now disappeared. The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday that the New Corolla, which left the Middle East for California before the war broke out, was unloading about 2 million barrels of crude oil from Iraq IN Long Beach. It was the last planned shipment to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
April 18, 2026 | Daily JAM |
On Friday, when traders focused on hopes that the Strait of Hormuz was about to reopen, the most commonly cited international price of oil, Brent futures, fell 9% to about $90 a barrel, the lowest settlement price since the second week of the war.
But if you needed a barrel of oil now, as opposed to delivery of one in, say June–which is what an oil future means, the price on Friday was higher: almost $99 a barrel, according to Argus Media. That second price, often called the spot price, more closely reflects what companies, such as refiners, pay for commodities–and therefore how much energy will cost the economy as a whole.
April 3, 2026 | Daily JAM |
When asset classes that are “supposed” to move together diverge, it gets my attention. The markets are trying to tell me something.
Which is what happened with stocks and oil on Thursday, April 2, after President Donald Trump’s speech on the war with Iran.
March 31, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Paul Krugman points out that oil at sea at the start of the Iran war provided a price buffer. But that buffer is about to run out. Deliveries to Asian markets will end this week; deliveries to Europe will end next week.
March 30, 2026 | Daily JAM |
U.S. oil prices ended Monday’s session above $100 a barrel for the first time since the US and Israel launched a war against Iran as President Donald Trump threatened further escalation of attacks, including on critical energy infrastructure. West Texas Intermediate futures rose more than 3% to settle just below $103 a barrel, the highest since July 2022. Global benchmark Brent, meanwhile, is on track for a record percentage gain in March. And average U.S. retail gasoline prices are hovering just below $4 a gallon.
