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Oil prices turned to a gain Friday after Iran poured cold water on growing market hopes for a near-term agreement with the United States, reminding traders yet again that optimism around diplomacy and reality on the ground are not always moving in the same direction.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday that Tehran could not necessarily say an agreement was close, according to Tasnim. The comments followed days of mixed messaging from both sides and reinforced a pattern oil traders know well by now: markets rally on diplomatic headlines, then spend the next day trying to determine whether anything actually changed.

A senior Iranian source had earlier told Reuters that some gaps had narrowed, but no agreement had been reached. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also pointed to "some good signs" while making clear that any Iranian effort to restrict movement through the Strait of Hormuz would remain a red line.

Six weeks into the ceasefire, traders appear reluctant to price in major diplomatic progress unless they see some more definitive proof. While markets repeatedly move on headlines, they do tend to snap back once optimism outruns reality.

The stakes remain enormous. Physical oil markets are tightening, inventories continue falling, and elevated fuel prices are feeding broader inflation concerns across major economies.

Adding another layer of anxiety, ADNOC's chief executive warned this week that full oil flows through Hormuz may not return until at least early 2027, even if hostilities ended immediately.

[...]The only debate thus far was a self-inflicted disaster for Bass and Raman, and Bass is refusing to debate again. Asked--yes or no — whether illegal aliens should vote, Pratt answered "no," and Bass and Raman, looking like cockroaches caught in the open when the kitchen lights came on, sputtered versions of: "well, it depends..." Pratt is the law and order, clean out the insanely violent homeless, no disease-infested discarded needles, no human feces everywhere, sane, fiscally responsible candidate. Bass and Raman are California democrats, which is to say the opposite of Pratt and sane Californians, many of whom have already fled to red states, leaving only people likely to vote for Bass, the woman who can't imagine any need for rational anti-wildfire policies, like keeping reservoirs filled with water.

In a rational state — California is currently on fire again — Pratt should be a shoo-in.

His political ads are brilliant, influencing future ads. He's out-fundraising Bass, but this is California.

Kurt Schlichter is a high-powered lawyer, retired army officer, and best-selling author who still lives in California. He grew up there and lived the California dream, seeing California in its glory days when anything was possible. He remains because he's one of the well-off elite able to weather California's current, unlivable horrors. And, most importantly, he doesn't live in LA:

Nope, Los Angeles is not my problem, and I'm not going to give it another moment of thought. If it wants to drown in a cesspool of hobo dung, it can dive in. Spencer Pratt is absolutely right about everything he says, from the fires to the junkies to the gross incompetence.

Moreover, everybody knows it's true. But nobody cares. You need to understand something. This isn't about competence.

When Karen Bass, a black communist mental defective, looks baffled at Spencer Pratt explaining how she's helped run Los Angeles into the ground, that look of confusion is not because she's stupid. She is, but it's because he's speaking a different language. She's a literal communist. She's gone to Cuba and taken notes. Her purpose isn't to create prosperity and security for the people of Los Angeles. Her purpose, like that of all communists, is to secure power. The same is true of her bizarre, real competitor, some South Asian communist named Nithya Raman.

As is endemic to the Third World, they fetishize power; these Marxists want control. That's it. It's not about filling in potholes. It's not about safe streets. It's not even about keeping half the city from going up in flames. It's about control. There is no bottom to Los Angeles. It's not going to get so bad that people are going to generate some sort of backlash, no matter how clever Spencer Pratt's ads are, and they are clever. Those ads are only scoring with those of us on the outside. They give us false hope that something can be done. But nothing can be done. The decline is not the point. It's literally irrelevant to them.

Take Detroit, once also a rich and powerful city. Do you think that at some point, the leftists who control it looked at it and said, "Wow, we have become Detroit. Yikes! Should we try something else"? No. The dysfunction is the function; the squalor doesn't matter to them. Not at all.

California has the nation's highest unemployment and the largest illegal population. When its rampant fraud is investigated, it will surely be number one in the nation in that dubious distinction. The streets and freeways are crumbling, crime is out of control, and never-to-be-finished boondoggles like the high-speed rail to nowhere that no one wants, needs or will ride, and an animal and Monarch Butterfly(?) wildlife bridge despoil the landscape.

Schlichter goes on to explain that the remaining Californians will vote for Bass again because they're Californians and Democrats.

[...]