After yesterday’s sharp moves, not much is going on today, so I’d like to take this opportunity to step back and look at the whole arc of this war. The deal that is (probably) being signed Friday gives us a rare clean bookend, and what happened at the start of the war tells you a great deal about what is likely to happen now at its end. Start with the single fact that frames everything. The war began on February 28 with coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran. It shut the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for roughly a fifth of the world's oil. By any conventional reading, that is the most bullish backdrop gold ... (full story)