WTI below $100 and core CPI at a five-year low handed the Bank of Canada its clearest signal yet. The bond market saw it. The currency saw it. The equity market told a more complicated story than the headline suggested.

Energy gained 2.3%. Mining lost between 2% and 6%. Financials dropped. Tech retreated. The index nearly flat is an arithmetic accident produced by one sector offsetting everything else. The US 30-year yield at a 19-year high is what drove the session.

Gold stayed near $4,500 Tuesday while Canadian miners shed 2% to 6%. The divergence is not a market anomaly. It is the availability heuristic doing what it always does: overwriting the correct frame with the most recent one.

Canada's April inflation print came in below consensus and core cooled to a five-year low. Yields rose anyway. That contradiction is the most important signal of the day for Canadian portfolios.

The TSX shed 435 points on May 15 as a global bond rout and stalled Hormuz talks punished miners, banks, and rate-sensitive names. Energy was the lone sector standing. The TSX is closed today for Victoria Day. Tuesday opens with April CPI and the Iran NSC meeting outcome landing simultaneously.

Eleven weeks of elevated crude has recalibrated what investors call "normal." The research on anchoring explains why that shift is dangerous — and why the most costly portfolio decisions of 2026 are still ahead.