Sunday's cheat sheet called for a bifurcated early week — Trump's "largely negotiated" Iran claim colliding with Tehran's "far from reality" rebuttal, with PCE positioned as the week's decisive catalyst. Two sessions in, that's broadly the script we've gotten, but the magnitudes have been larger than the base case allowed for.
Monday's holiday-thinned session delivered a 6.57% WTI collapse to $89.50 on weekend deal optimism alone — briefly piercing Sunday's $91 base case support. Tuesday then handed us overnight US strikes against Iranian forces near Hormuz, Iranian anti-ship missiles fired at US naval assets, AND continued Doha talks via Qatari mediation, all in one news cycle. WTI rebounded 3.14% to $92.52. The S&P 500 briefly tagged record territory above 7,540 before fading. The dollar finished as the strongest major currency, with US data — Consumer Confidence at 93.1 vs. 92.0 forecast, Dallas Fed at +0.4 vs. -1.0 forecast, Case-Shiller at +1.0% m/m vs. +0.5% forecast — surprising consistently to the upside.
We're now sitting between Sunday's base case and risk-off scenarios, with the Memorial Day shift pulling Thursday's April PCE release into focus as the week's defining event.