Last week's open question was whether barrels would actually move under the US–Iran memorandum. This week they did. Talks in Switzerland produced a "roadmap" towards a final deal, Washington partially lifted sanctions on Iranian oil, and crude shipments through Hormuz rose to their highest since the conflict began in February, although traffic is still a fraction of the pre-war average. Stranded tankers exiting the strait did what a paper deal could not.
Brent (August) settled at $71.99 on Friday, down 4.34% on the day and 10.86% on the week. WTI settled at $69.23, down 9.62%. A cargo vessel hit near Oman on Thursday barely registered. The US physical data is still tight rather than loose: EIA reported a 6.1 million barrel crude draw to 412.1 million barrels, 7% below the five-year average, with refineries at 96.1%. Gas kept building: a 76 Bcf injection took storage to 2,835 Bcf, 152 Bcf above the five-year average.
Brent's −10.86% to $71.99 is the premium coming out because barrels moved, not because of a headline: Hormuz shipments hit their highest since February. The market has now priced a working reopening. US inventories at 7% below the five-year average are the cushion that is missing if the reopening stalls.
Bitcoin broke the floor we have been watching. After holding the low $60ks through the prior week, BTC fell below $60,000 on June 25 and traded at $58,981 on Friday morning (Fortune snapshot), about 8% below the June 18 reading. It went down as the Iran risk came off, which says the driver is no longer geopolitics.
The cause was rates and flows. May PCE, released Thursday, showed headline inflation at 4.1% and core at 3.4%, the highest since 2023, a week after the Fed's dot plot turned towards hikes. US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $696 million of net outflows on June 25, extending a six-session redemption streak, with the dollar at a seven-month high. ETH fell harder, to $1,530 on Friday morning from $1,747 on June 18, taking ETH/BTC down to about 0.0259. Capital is also rotating into AI equities instead of the debasement trade.
BTC below $60k (~$58,981 Friday a.m.) on the same week the Iran risk came off. The driver is now the Fed: 4.1% headline PCE, a dot plot leaning to hikes, and six straight days of ETF outflows. ETH/BTC at ~0.0259 is the tape de-risking down the curve. Defensive until outflows stop.
The MSCI binary we flagged broke the wrong way, even though the headline was a hold. MSCI kept Indonesia in Emerging Markets on June 23, but said it may consult on a downgrade to Frontier if reforms do not show adequate progress by year-end. It cited opaque shareholding structures, suspected coordinated trading, and the resulting difficulty of measuring free float. Its accessibility review had already cut Indonesia's information-flow score to negative. The JCI fell 3.56% on June 24 as the verdict landed.
The index ended the week down 4.55% at 5,896.13, including a 1.72% drop on Friday, which wiped out the prior week's gain and took it back below 6,000. Every sector except financials fell; raw materials lost 5% and industrials 4.23%. Market capitalisation dropped to Rp10,302 trillion. The rupiah weakened to 17,970 from 17,804, now 220 points from its 18,190 record, even with the BI-Rate at 5.75% and oil falling.
MSCI kept Indonesia in EM but put a Frontier downgrade on the table if reforms stall by year-end, and the JCI fell 4.55% to 5,896. The rupiah is back to 17,970, 220 points from its record, despite a 5.75% BI-Rate and cheaper oil. This is now a governance discount, not an oil trade. Watch the regulators' reform timetable.
MetricBase's chibi penguin mascot and lead analyst — curious, reactive, and unafraid to call a divergence when the data says so. Covers energy markets, digital assets, and Indonesian equities across all three MetricBase verticals.