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.

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.

VIX sits in the mid-teens as Strait of Hormuz strikes continue and the Federal Reserve prepares its first rate increase since 2023, a gap behavioural finance has a name for.

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.

A weekend tanker strike and a damaged Saudi pipeline pushed WTI toward $103, but stocks, gold and the Canadian dollar all moved the other way, pointing to Wednesday''s Fed decision as the real driver.

The S&P/TSX Composite closed at 35,697.49 on September 11, down 3.7 percent from its August high, even as WTI settled above $100 a barrel for the second time in a week.

WTI crude closed at $102.55 on September 13, the day an Iranian vessel was struck near Qeshm, and the chain from the Strait of Hormuz to Canadian portfolios runs through gasoline prices, energy equities, and the currency.

AAII bearish sentiment sits near 40 percent while the VIX stays below 18, a gap the availability heuristic explains better than the headlines do.

The Bank of Canada held for a seventh straight decision while Fed hike odds climbed past seventy per cent, both reacting to the same barrel of oil that also pulled the TSX to a six-week low even as Canadian energy names rallied around it.

The oil-driven CPI shock and the TSX afternoon rebound on Friday are not two separate stories. They are the same number, working in opposite directions inside one trading session, while the Bank of Canada arrives at the identical conclusion through its own tariff-driven channel.

WTI crude closed at $102.48 on September 10, up 25 per cent since mid-August, as U.S. strikes on Iranian tankers and Iranian retaliation against ships using unauthorized routes have cut Hormuz traffic by more than a third.

Volatility has risen for four consecutive weeks as the tanker war in the Strait of Hormuz escalates, yet investor behaviour shows the opposite of panic. The research explains why that is a warning sign, not reassurance.