Then Saturday happened. The U.S. Navy attacked and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman. Iran, which had declared the Strait of Hormuz "completely open" on Friday, reversed course almost immediately. The ceasefire that markets had spent all of last week celebrating now looks about as sturdy as a wet paper bag. And on Monday morning, Wall Street opened accordingly - not in full panic mode, but clearly in "wait, what now?" mode.

The S&P 500 opened this morning is trading down roughly 0.1% in early action, pulling back from Friday's record close of 7,126.06. The Nasdaq Composite slipped about 0.2%, while the Dow Jones was essentially flat - bouncing within 0.1% in either direction. The VIX popped back above 18 this morning, reminding everyone that complacency is a seasonal condition in this market.

The saving grace: as one analyst noted, "news flow from the Middle East was net negative over the weekend but the overall process still seems to be on a trajectory of deescalation" - which is Wall Street's polite way of saying "we're not panicking yet, but we're definitely watching."

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Here is a brief and humbling timeline of the last 72 hours in the world's most important oil chokepoint:

Friday: Iran declares the Strait of Hormuz "completely open." Markets erupt. Oil crashes 11%. The White House posts a victory lap on social media.

Saturday: The U.S. Navy fires on and seizes an Iranian cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman. Iran, which had announced a reopening less than 24 hours earlier, calls the seizure "armed piracy" and warns of retaliation. Ship traffic through the strait - already down 95% from pre-war levels despite Friday's announcement - grinds further toward zero.

Sunday: Trump posts that U.S. negotiators will travel to Pakistan for a new round of talks. Iran's Foreign Ministry, apparently working from a different script, says they have no such plans.

Monday: Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson formally confirmed Tehran has "no plans" for a new round of negotiations, and that Iran's "red lines" remain unchanged.

The Lebanon-Israel ceasefire - the mechanism enabling Hormuz access - expires April 22. That date is now the market's most closely watched calendar event. Everything else this week is noise by comparison.

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This week brings results from Tesla, Intel, and United Airlines - three names with very different stories to tell about how the current environment is treating them. Tesla has its own AI narrative. Intel is navigating semiconductor trade restrictions. Airlines had a rough open Monday, with Delta, United, Southwest, and American all dropping more than 2% at the session start on the oil price reversal and weekend weather disruptions.

Goldman Sachs last week set the tone, reporting its second-highest quarterly profit ever - but its shares gave up gains almost immediately on the news, which is the market's way of saying "great quarter, we already priced this in." Analysts expect Q1 earnings growth of 12.6% for the S&P 500 overall - which would mark the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit annualized earnings growth for the index.

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Bitcoin had a genuinely fantastic run last week. It rode the Hormuz ceasefire euphoria from near $75,000 all the way to an intraday high of $78,384 on Friday - its highest level since before the U.S.-Israel-Iran war began on February 28. The total crypto market cap surged more than 5%, with Ethereum, Solana, and XRP all posting gains of 4% to 7% on the Strait news.

Monday morning is a different vibe. Bitcoin is trading around $75,092 - down about 1.2% - as renewed Iran tensions push some caution back into the risk-asset trade. The FOMC meets April 28-29. March core CPI came in at 2.6%, below expectations - a meaningful data point if oil cooperates. The ceasefire expiry on April 22 is the variable between here and that meeting that nobody can fully model.

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While geopolitics was busy torching its own progress over the weekend, the AI world kept moving. Marvell Technology shares were surging Monday morning following reports that the semiconductor company is in talks with Google to develop two new chips designed to run AI models more efficiently - one a memory processing unit to work alongside Google's tensor processing units, and another a new TPU built specifically for AI inference. The AI infrastructure buildout is running on its own independent timeline regardless of what happens in the Strait of Hormuz.

The software sector posted one of its best sessions in nearly a year last week - with Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir, Salesforce, and Palo Alto Networks leading a surge in the iShares software ETF that reclaimed February and March lows in what technicians are calling a "false breakdown" - historically a constructive signal.

Nvidia extended its record-setting winning streak last week, and the Marvell-Google chip development news this morning suggests the competitive AI landscape is deepening rather than narrowing.

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Oil's Friday collapse was one for the books. WTI crude dropped to a close of $82.59 - its lowest since the war began in February - as the Strait of Hormuz reopening hit. Analysts declared the energy inflation chapter closed. It was a very nice 36 hours.

WTI is back up around $85.95 this morning, adding more than 4% on the day, as the weekend's events erased confidence in the reopening's staying power. Brent crude climbed back toward $94. The swift reversal underscores how much last week's oil selloff was built on hope rather than actual tanker movement - most major shipping firms were still keeping vessels on the Africa reroute even after Friday's announcement, because insurance companies were refusing to cover transit in a zone where Iranian gunboats remained active.

Gold is at $4,842 this morning, down about 0.8% from Friday's close of $4,879, as some haven premium adjusts on the mixed geopolitical read. Gold posted four consecutive weekly gains heading into this week, with central bank buying, dollar pressure, and inflation uncertainty providing the sustained tailwind.

Last week ended on a genuine high - record closes, a Nasdaq streak for the history books, oil crashing on peace hopes. The kind of Friday that makes you feel good about the world. Then the world reminded everyone why that feeling is seasonal.

The Strait of Hormuz opened Friday and effectively closed again by Saturday - the diplomatic equivalent of a revolving door going 100 miles per hour. Iran says no plans for new talks. Trump says talks are happening in Pakistan. Both cannot be fully correct. Oil is back above $85, the VIX is creeping higher, and equities opened in modest retreat - though nowhere near the panic territory of earlier this year when WTI was above $100 and the S&P was nursing a steep correction.

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