A stock that had risen more than 230 per cent since April drew retail buyers chasing the momentum, even as the CEO and chief legal officer filed to sell shares in the two weeks before Thursday's reversal. The research on what a run of gains does to investor judgment explains both sides of the trade.

The S&P/TSX Composite closed at 35,416.20 Wednesday, its third straight gain, as Canadian energy producers rallied on the Hormuz-driven oil surge while the index's gold miners, led by an 8.4 per cent drop in Franco-Nevada, absorbed the other side of the same trade.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.79% Monday and Nasdaq fell 1.55%, then both rebounded Tuesday alongside an IBM earnings collapse and a semiconductor whipsaw. The TSX Composite moved less than a point of range either day, and its sector mix explains why.

For four months, Iran's leverage was a shipping lane. Wednesday's threat to halt energy exports from the entire region, paired with a strike that hit actual production infrastructure, changes the mechanism connecting this war to Canadian portfolios, even though the base case has not changed yet.

Energy strength was not enough to offset financials and materials on Bay Street, and Tuesday's steeper losses are landing in Asia, where Kospi is down 3.2% while North American futures sit close to flat.

Friday's close left the index within 0.9% of its June 17 high. Tuesday's US inflation data, Wednesday's Bank of Canada decision, and Warsh's first Congressional testimony now land inside a single 48 hour window, against a backdrop of oil already up more than 4% Monday.

Brent crude gained about 5 percent after simultaneous strikes on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan, a fraction of the surge that followed the war's opening moves in February. The TSX closed the week near its highs anyway.

June's jobs report landed at 18,200, almost double the Street's forecast, and pulled unemployment down to 6.5%. Why the beat validated this morning's argument about recession psychology, and why it barely moved the Bank of Canada's July 15 calculus.

The TSX gained 0.76% Thursday to 35,200, led by gold miners and the banks, even as the Iran conflict widened to two new countries. Why a U.S. chip rally and easing bond yields did the real work, and what a five-week, 613-point trading range says about Canadian equity exposure.

Wednesday's escalation drove a synchronized selloff across equities, oil, and gold. By Thursday afternoon, four of those five moves had already reversed. The Government of Canada 10 year yield is the one that stayed put.

A single Iran headline pushed oil up and bond yields up at the same time, splitting the index into a clear winner and a clear group of losers underneath a headline decline of just under one percent.

Twelve major asset classes moved on Wednesday, and the direction split cleanly along exposure to the conflict. Professional analysts call it a downgrade in confidence, not a resolved crisis.

Thursday's escalation was larger than Wednesday's by CENTCOM's own count, and equity futures rose anyway. The pattern has a name in behavioural finance, and it is worth naming before the Bank of Canada's July 15 decision.

WTI's jump to $74.35 lifted Methanex, South Bow, and ARC Resources more than 4% while HudBay Minerals and Energy Fuels fell over 6%, a split that says more about currency and sub-sector mechanics than about the price of oil itself.

WTI is up about a percent from Monday's four week low after Iran's Revolutionary Guard fired on two vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the first breach of the June 17 memorandum of understanding. The Bank of Canada's blackout for the July 15 decision started this morning, before either the attack or the market's tepid reaction to it could enter the public record.

Energy and materials led Monday's pullback in Toronto while AI-driven buying pushed the Dow to a record close in New York. Tuesday's shipping attack in the Strait of Hormuz has barely moved oil, leaving Canadian energy names to open into the same soft price that pressured them Monday.