WTI +11% on the week as Trump calls Iran’s proposal ‘a piece of garbage.’

Eleven weeks into the conflict, the diplomatic track that briefly looked credible has collapsed back to public insults. The Trump-Xi summit ended Thursday without any concrete plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Chinese state-media readout omitted the Hormuz commitment entirely. Trump then publicly rejected Iran’s next proposal. Crude futures spent Friday repricing the disruption back into the curve — and gasoline followed (+2.67%), natural gas printed a six-week high (+2.28%), and the 10-year Treasury yield ripped to 4.59 percent as energy-inflation pass-through went from forecast to fact.

WTI +11% on the Week · Brent +8% · Hormuz Closed Week 11 · Friday, May 15, 2026

Start with the price action. June WTI crude (CLM26) closed up $4.25 (+4.20 percent) at roughly $106 a barrel — a 1.5-week high — and finished the week up about 11 percent. Brent rose 3.17 percent to $109.07, up 8.1 percent on the week. June RBOB gasoline added 2.67 percent. June Henry Hub natural gas printed a six-week high at +2.28 percent. The catalyst was sequencing: the Trump-Xi summit ended Thursday without any concrete plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz; Xinhua’s Chinese-language readout did not mention Hormuz or US oil purchases; then Friday morning Trump told reporters he had read Iran’s latest peace proposal and called the first sentence “a piece of garbage” while declaring the existing ceasefire “on life support.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright spent Friday at Port Arthur, Texas talking up US export capacity. The market read the package as a confirmation that the diplomatic track has slipped to a multi-month problem, not a multi-week one.

The supply context keeps tightening. The International Energy Agency now estimates the war has removed approximately 10 million barrels per day of combined crude and refined-product flows through the Strait of Hormuz — the largest single supply disruption in oil-market history, equivalent to roughly 10 percent of global consumption. The EIA’s May Short-Term Energy Outlook now assumes Hormuz remains effectively closed through late May with flows beginning to resume only in late May or early June, and projects global oil inventories will draw at an average of 8.5 million b/d in Q2 with Brent averaging $106 per barrel through May and June before easing to roughly $89 by Q4 once flows normalize. Tanker traffic through the Strait ran at roughly 30 vessels in the most-recent 24-hour window — against a pre-war norm of approximately 140 per day. Kpler’s comparable count earlier in the week showed only 5-7 ships per day. Iran said the May 15 figure rose to about 30; the structural delta from pre-war is still ~80 percent.

The cross-asset confirmation was uniform. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose roughly 10 basis points to 4.59 percent — its highest level since February 2025 — on energy-driven inflation pricing. The dollar index set up for its best weekly gain in two months. Gold dropped 2 percent to $4,556.46 per ounce, its lowest since May 5. The S&P 500 fell 1.24 percent, surrendering the 7,500 level it had just crossed Thursday; the Dow lost 50,000 again on the same session. The clearest institutional read came from Berkshire Hathaway’s Q1 13F filed Friday — CEO Greg Abel’s first — which disclosed a material trim to the Chevron position alongside complete exits from Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, and UnitedHealth. Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management, captured the macro setup on CNBC Friday: “10 of the last 12 recessions were preceded by a spike in oil. This is starting to get uncomfortable.” Energy-equity earnings are sitting on rising crude price decks while the underlying demand environment is now repricing toward contraction. Both can be priced in. Both are being priced in.

Four other moves from Friday that all pointed the same direction.

Trump rejects Iran proposal: ‘a piece of garbage’ · ceasefire ‘on life support.’ Speaking to reporters Friday, President Trump said he had reviewed Iran’s latest peace proposal and called the first sentence “a piece of garbage” while warning Iran “will make a deal or be decimated.” He described the existing ceasefire as “on life support.” The administration also signaled it may restart the operation to escort commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz with naval and air support as soon as this week. Oil markets read the package as definitive: the diplomatic track is back to first principles, not on the cusp of breakthrough. WTI added more than $4 a barrel on the back of the remarks alone.

Berkshire materially trims Chevron in Abel’s first 13F. Berkshire Hathaway’s Q1 13F — filed Friday, the first under new CEO Greg Abel — disclosed a material reduction in the Chevron position alongside complete exits from Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, UnitedHealth, and several other large holdings. Abel concentrated the equity book from 40 holdings to 26 and raised cash to a record $397.4 billion. The Chevron trim is not a vote against energy — the firm remains a top-five holding — but it is a vote against captive Middle East exposure at current valuations. For energy-equity allocators, the cleanest read is: rotate the integrated-oil sleeve toward US-only E&P names with concentrated Permian, Eagle Ford, and DJ basin acreage.

Niles on CNBC: 10 of last 12 recessions preceded by an oil spike. Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management, told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” Friday that “this is starting to get uncomfortable” and that 10 of the last 12 US recessions were preceded by an oil-price spike. He added that the Federal Reserve’s ability to cut rates in the future could be hampered by oil’s impact on inflation — traders now see the Fed raising rates for its next move. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.59 percent, its highest since February 2025; the dollar posted its best weekly gain in two months. The cross-asset confirmation is doing the work the equity tape was masking earlier in the week.

New Mexico now collecting $59 million for every $1 added to a barrel. The Associated Press reported Friday that New Mexico is generating roughly $59 million in incremental state revenue for every $1 added to the price of a barrel of oil — making it the cleanest single-state read on the fiscal upside flowing through the US producing states from the war-driven price spike. The figure is the practical confirmation of why state-level political support for sustained US production growth is hardening regardless of the federal energy-policy framework. For energy-focused real-asset investors, the southern New Mexico Permian footprint is the highest-quality location-specific exposure in the public markets right now.