Four sessions of falling crude reflect a shipping rebound the Pentagon is describing and Tehran is denying, and Canadian yields are not confirming either story.

The composite fell 67.61 points Friday to cap a week shaped by the Federal Reserve first rate hike since 2023 and a Hormuz-driven swing in oil. Energy was the sole sector to post a weekly gain among the decliners.

WTI has fallen for four straight sessions as Washington signals openness to talks with Iran at the UN General Assembly. The tanker war that sent oil toward 100 dollars has not ended, but the market is now pricing a chance that it might.

The Fed raised its policy rate for the first time since 2023 while the Bank of Canada held and floated cuts, yet Canadian bond yields kept climbing regardless of which way the Bank leans.

Thursday's Fed relief rally reversed within one session, and the asset that should have fallen alongside rising bond yields did the opposite instead.

Trump says the Iran war may be nearing an end even as a new front opens between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, with a damaged pipeline threatening 4 percent of global oil supply. For Canadian portfolios, the mechanism runs in two directions at once.

Two central banks read the same energy-driven inflation data this week and reached opposite conclusions about whether it will last. Thursday sided with the one that held.

Energy names gained on crude above 100 dollars a barrel, but the broader index still closed lower after the Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time since 2023.

Tanker traffic through the corridor has collapsed to a fraction of its usual volume since fighting between US and Iranian forces resumed, and the market has already priced in most of the disruption without a full shutdown.

A hawkish Fed hike hit Wall Street and TSX financials the same day Ottawa and Brussels moved to deepen trade and defence ties.

Energy strength from the Hormuz-driven oil rally is fighting a three-week slide in base metals, financials, and technology, with a near-certain Federal Reserve hike this afternoon adding a fresh cross-current.

WTI crude near $105 a barrel is no longer only a Market Desk story. It is a direct input into a Federal Reserve decision markets call almost certain, and Canadian energy exposure is the main channel back to portfolios.

The safe-haven trade that should have followed a physical bypass shutdown around the Strait of Hormuz never arrived, and the reason points to Wednesday's rate decision, not the war.

The index closed at 35,703.47 on September 14, down from a late-August high of 36,957.63, despite Canadian Natural Resources, Tourmaline and Suncor all posting gains through the same stretch. Technology weakness and a jittery run-up to Wednesday's Fed decision are absorbing more than energy is contributing.

The Saudi East-West pipeline was Riyadh's answer to the Hormuz closure, a 4 to 5 million barrel-a-day route to the Red Sea that did not need the Strait at all. Drone strikes shut it down September 10 and 11. The mechanism from there to Canadian portfolios is direct and already visible.

The CBOE Volatility Index spiked after the Saudi pipeline strike and retreated within a single session, even as WTI crude kept climbing. The anchoring effect behind that gap is worth naming before the next escalation arrives.