Rate-hike odds climbed to 66%, the 10-year Treasury yield hit its highest level since January 2025, and oil pushed near $92 on renewed Hormuz supply fears. But gold fell 1.2% — and that's the move worth decoding. When bullion drops into a rising oil tape, the market isn't pricing more inflation. It's pricing more Fed. Here's the mechanism behind the repricing, why a Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a 44-year low widens the risk, and the specific thing Friday's jobs report actually decides.

Crude broke $90 after American forces struck Iranian launchers near the Strait of Hormuz — but the oil price is the symptom, not the story. This shock landed at the exact moment the Fed foreclosed its own flexibility, pushing September hike odds to 57% and the 2-year yield to 4.34%. Here's the transmission mechanism, the one signal in gold that confirms it, and the three conditions that would prove the read wrong.