Brent crude slid for a fourth straight session and global equities pushed higher Thursday, with the front-month contract trading at $92.40 a barrel in early London hours as a second full day under the Islamabad ceasefire passed without major violations and tanker bookings through the Strait of Hormuz rose past pre-war averages.

The June Brent contract opened at $93.10 on ICE and drifted lower through the Asian session before bottoming at $92.05, its weakest print since Feb. 17, ahead of the U.S. strikes that opened the six-week conflict. West Texas Intermediate tracked the move, falling to $88.45. The two benchmarks have now shed roughly $16 a barrel since Friday’s settlement, an unwind that traders said was being driven less by fresh selling than by the steady disappearance of bidders who had been hedging tail-risk through the front of the curve.

“The hedges are coming off in an orderly way, which is the best signal you can get that the market actually believes this is over,” said Maren Loftus, head of oil research at Helvetia Commodities in Geneva. “On Monday the move was emotional. By Thursday the trade is mechanical. Refiners are lifting cargoes, war-risk underwriters are reopening books, and the speculative length that took us to $125 in March is just gone.”

Equities followed the path of least resistance. The Stoxx 600 was up 0.7% in mid-morning trade, on track for a fifth straight gain. Germany’s DAX added 0.9%, France’s CAC 40 climbed 0.6% and the FTSE 100 lagged at plus 0.2% as energy majors dragged. Earlier in Asia, the Nikkei 225 closed up 1.4%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.1% and South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.7%, paced by exporters. S&P 500 futures pointed to a 0.5% open, with the Nasdaq 100 indicated up 0.7%.

The shipping data drew the most attention from physical-market desks. The Suez Canal Authority said 71 tankers had cleared the canal northbound in the previous 24 hours, a 28% increase over the seven-day average through Friday. The Bahrain-based Joint Maritime Information Center reported 41 tanker transits of the Strait of Hormuz in the same window, against a 30-day pre-ceasefire average of 33. Three Greek owners that had idled vessels off Fujairah and Khor Fakkan since late March confirmed they had instructed masters to resume normal Gulf transits.

“This is the fastest commercial reopening of a war-disrupted choke point I can remember tracking,” said Ingrid Aaltonen, head of tanker research at Clarksons in London. “Owners want to be first through. The freight market is going to soften quickly because there’s a queue of ballasters waiting to load, but the signal it sends about counterparty confidence is what matters this week.”

War-risk insurance, which had become one of the costliest frictions in the conflict, eased further. Two London-based marine underwriters told clients Thursday morning that additional war premiums for Strait of Hormuz transits were being quoted at 0.55% to 0.70% of hull value, down from a Monday range of 0.65% to 0.85% and well below the wartime peak of 1.6% reached in late March. A senior broker at a major Lloyd’s syndicate, who declined to be named discussing client pricing, said most cargo underwriters were now willing to write 30-day cover at terms “approaching normal” provided the UN observation mission at Hormuz remained operational.

The shift was visible across the energy complex. Henry Hub natural gas held near $3.85 per million British thermal units, with European TTF gas down 3.1% to 32.40 euros per megawatt-hour, its lowest level in seven weeks. Diesel cracks in northwest Europe narrowed by another $4 a barrel as refiners ramped runs. U.S. gasoline futures fell 2.7% to $2.61 a gallon, foreshadowing further relief at the pump after AAA’s national average had peaked at $4.31 on April 4.

OPEC+ was the watchpoint hanging over the rally. The group’s joint ministerial monitoring committee is scheduled to meet by video conference on April 23 to review the April 1 production hike of 1.5 million barrels per day, which had been justified at the time as a war-related stabilization measure. Two Gulf delegates, speaking on background, said internal discussions had begun on whether to taper the increase at the June ministerial meeting in Vienna, but neither would forecast an outcome. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, asked by a Saudi state broadcaster Wednesday whether barrels would be pulled back, said only that the kingdom would “respond to market conditions as they evolve, not as they were.”

Analyst forecasts continued to migrate lower. Morgan Stanley cut its second-quarter Brent forecast to $90 from $98 and its year-end target to $82. Bank of America moved to $85 by end-June. Goldman Sachs, which had already trimmed to $94 on Monday, held that figure but flagged downside risk if OPEC+ did not act by midyear. JPMorgan was the outlier, holding $96 on the view that Iranian crude, much of which had been priced into the rally as available barrels, would in practice come back to market only slowly given pipeline and port damage from the conflict.

“The bull case from here is essentially Iranian supply taking longer to recover than the screens are pricing,” said John Reilly, a rates and commodities strategist at Citi. “There’s real damage at Kharg Island, and the floating storage that built up off Bandar Abbas is going to clear before any new production reaches the water. So we may overshoot to the downside short term and then rebuild a $5 to $7 a barrel risk premium by July.”

Currency and rate markets registered the calmer tone. The dollar index slipped a further 0.3%, gold fell 1.2% to $2,278 an ounce, and the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield held at 4.11% after a small overnight retreat. Fed funds futures continued to dial back the urgency of a June rate cut, with the implied probability at 31%, down from 38% on Monday and 55% before the ceasefire announcement.

The banking earnings cycle has so far reinforced the recovery narrative. JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America have all reported through the week with trading desks posting strong fixed-income and commodities revenue during the war quarter. Goldman Sachs reports Friday. Investor focus next week shifts to the megacap technology cohort, with Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta Platforms scheduled, and to whether the lingering uncertainty around the House Ways and Means vote on the AI moratorium bill weighs on guidance.

Currents traders said positioning had begun to tilt more cautiously even as price action remained constructive. One London-based macro fund manager described the setup as “a market that has gotten what it wanted and now has to figure out what it wants next.” UN observers at Hormuz were expected to issue their first formal compliance report Friday, with officials in Riyadh, Tehran, Tel Aviv and Washington indicating coordinated statements would follow.