Friday delivered a genuine escalation. Iran struck Syria for the first time in this conflict, hit a Kuwait power desalination plant, and formally declared that no oil or gas will transit the Strait of Hormuz while US strikes continue. Brent closed the session near $86, WTI pushed toward $82, and the week's gain in crude comfortably exceeded 10%. Against that, the University of Michigan's preliminary sentiment print came in at 54.4 against a 51.0 consensus, with one-year inflation expectations easing from 4.6% to 4.2% - a figure the afternoon crowd spent the next hour discounting once they realised 70% of survey responses were collected before the ceasefire collapsed. The key level that defined the session was $3,975 in gold: it held through the London open, supported a mean-reversion bounce toward $4,020, then faded under renewed Fed hawk commentary from Logan and Jefferson as September hike probability sat near 50%. Gold closed the week down over 3%, silver is off more than 7% across the same period, and neither has a clean technical reason to recover until $4,060 is reclaimed with conviction. EUR/USD closed around 1.1435, USD/JPY near 162.3, and GBP/USD surrendered part of its weekly rally to end below 1.347. Burnham's formal leadership announcement landed without market drama, but the real test begins Monday when he walks into Downing Street and his cabinet choices become official.
Next week is where positioning meets accountability. UK jobs data Tuesday, CPI Wednesday, the first Burnham cabinet appointments Monday, and a US-Iran conflict that has just opened a new theatre in Syria - all of it sits in front of traders before the following Friday's close. The full evening recap sets the specific levels, the conditional triggers, and the instrument-by-instrument game plan for navigating what could be the most consequential trading week of the summer. That detail is available to Markets Mastered subscribers now.