The bar height represents the magnitude of the initial relief rally; colour indicates whether the rally was subsequently reversed before the geopolitical event reached formal resolution. Four of five prior cycles saw the initial relief move surrender gains within a median of eleven trading days.

The divergence between gold spot and miners widened sharply in each yield-spike window from November 2025 through May 2026, even as gold itself continued climbing; the Hormuz closure band marks the period where the pattern intensified most severely.

In all three prior geopolitical relief signal events, retail fund flow reversed toward re-entry within four to six weeks of the event onset, before the underlying geopolitical driver had resolved. None of the three events had returned to the pre-event baseline at week 24.

The pre-war average of approximately $71 WTI (November 2025 through February 23, 2026) has been displaced by a new clustering near $100, reflecting the anchoring shift documented in the article. The May 15 close at $101.02 occurred on resumed selling pressure following the Trump-Xi summit's failure to produce Hormuz progress.

Bars show S&P 500 return in the five trading days following each shock event; dots show the 30-day return. Green indicates full recovery within 30 days. The current 2026 Iran War drawdown reflects premarket conditions on May 15 and has no 30-day data point yet. The median day-5 drawdown across all ten events is -2.5%, consistent with this morning's premarket move.

The April 2026 PPI reading of 6.0% year-over-year is the highest since December 2022, but the chart illustrates a critical structural difference: the current spike is concentrated in a brief supply-shock window tied to the Iran war, whereas the 2021-2022 cycle sustained double-digit readings for fourteen consecutive months. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The S&P 500's full recovery to near-peak levels occurred while Iran war headlines remained consistently negative. The gap between the market's forward pricing and retail investor sentiment reflects the availability heuristic at scale.

Brent crude has retraced approximately 21% from its $120 peak following the April 8 ceasefire, while the VIX, a measure of implied market volatility, remains elevated relative to the pre-war baseline. The divergence between oil's partial recovery and persistent investor anxiety is consistent with the availability heuristic delaying cognitive adjustment after a salient negative event. Source: Trading Economics, Yahoo Finance.