Data as-of the 2026-09-04 settled close. Numbers read directly from geopolitical — no prose math.

This is a live event, not a scenario check. The US and Iran have been in active, escalating conflict since at least Sept 1: the US struck Iranian targets and Tehran retaliated (CNBC, Sept 1: "U.S. Strikes Iran as Tehran Retaliates, Raising Risk of Wider..."), Iran reported two tankers hit by naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz with the US disputing the claim (CNBC, Sept 2), Iran fired missiles at a US base in Kuwait (CNBC, Sept 3), and by Sept 4 the US and EU were jointly pressing new Iran sanctions while oil hedge funds turned their most bullish since May (Semafor and Bloomberg, Sept 4). Bloomberg's Sept 2 headline captures the throughline directly: "US, Iran Escalate Attacks; Global Bond Selloff Deepens."

Oil is up hard and gaining conviction, defense sold off despite the war, and gold — the traditional crisis hedge — is not confirming any of it. This is a cross-asset picture of an inflation/rates shock, not a fear shock. Every upstream, services, and ETF name in the oil complex flipped from a negative to a positive 7-day change since the last scan (XOM -5.09%→+1.76%, COP -3.40%→+3.02%, EOG -6.33%→+1.26%), and refiners VLO (RSI 75.2) and PSX (RSI 74.8) are now both near-overbought on trailing-year gains of +138.57% and +93.87%. TLT reversed its prior scan's marginal improvement, moving from +1.01% to -0.80% on the week as its 200-day gap widened to -4.7% — long bonds are broken, not stabilizing, exactly as bond yields "soared to multi-decade highs" per CNBC (Sept 1). Gold (GLD) slipped further below its own 200-day (-1.4%→-2.1%) over the same stretch. And the market-pulse volatility gauge VIXY sits at 17.00, RSI 31.5, down 14.01% on the month and 57.2% off its own 52-week high — volatility is crushed, not spiking, in the middle of a live war. Read together: the market is pricing a supply-driven inflation problem the Fed will have to answer, not a flight-to-safety event.

Upstream

Services

• Every upstream and services name flipped from a negative or muted 7-day change last scan to a solidly positive one now — a direct, dated read-through of the week's US-Iran escalation into producer equities.
• COP leads the upstream group at +40.19% 1Y and +19.1% above its 200-day; SLB cooled from a near-overbought RSI of 70.9 last scan to 62.2 even as its 30-day gain held near +15%.
• Refiners VLO ($370.72, 1Y +138.57%, RSI 75.2) and PSX ($255.09, 1Y +93.87%, RSI 74.8) remain the hottest names in the whole oil complex — both now near overbought and running harder than the upstream producers above.

• USO's +9.59% weekly pop is the sharpest move in the entire energy complex, tracking MarketWatch's Sept 1 report of oil surging to a six-week high after US strikes on Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Every energy ETF except UNG is positive on both the trailing year and vs its 200-day; UNG remains the standing outlier in this book.

• Gold slipped deeper below its own 200-day this scan (-1.4%→-2.1%) during the exact window the war escalated — the clearest cross-asset tell in this file that the market isn't treating this as a fear event.
• TLT reversed the prior scan's marginal improvement: its 200-day gap widened back out from -4.1% to -4.7% and its 7-day change flipped from +1.01% to -0.80%, consistent with CNBC's Sept 1 report of global bond yields soaring to multi-decade highs on Middle East-driven inflation fears.
• The dollar (UUP) stays essentially flat over the year (+1.96%) — no currency-debasement or dollar-haven story here either.

Every prime in this subset sold off this week despite the live war — LMT (-6.85%), RTX (-5.20%), NOC (-5.55%), GD (-5.27%), LHX (-2.41%) — the opposite of a naive war-premium read. LMT and GD both flipped from above to at/near their 200-day. NOC, LHX, and BA remain the three names negative on both the trailing year and vs their 200-day; the rest stay positive on the trailing year even as this week's pullback deepens. Full sector detail, including the small-cap supply chain (BWXT, LEU, TTMI, GE), is in the companion 2026-09-04-defense-contractors.md scan.

TLT is the clearest, currently-live casualty: negative on the trailing year (-5.75%, worse than the prior scan's -4.98%) and now widening further below its 200-day (-4.7%, from -4.1%) as bond yields respond to the same oil-driven inflation fear reported by CNBC and Bloomberg (Sept 1). Within defense, the entire book took a hit this week rather than catching a bid, and NOC (-11.17% 1Y) and LHX (-6.06% 1Y) remain the names already broken on a long-horizon basis. BA carries a double exposure here — its commercial-aviation business faces direct fuel-cost and travel-demand pressure from the oil spike on top of its own negative trailing-year defense-segment trend (-8.02%).

This is now a live playbook, not a scenario read. The oil complex (upstream, services, ETFs) is confirmed running hot and accelerating — USO +91.37% 1Y and gaining, refiners VLO/PSX both near overbought — so a genuine further escalation would extend an already-live move rather than start one; SLB (62.2) and XLE/XOP (63-65) all have room left before overbought again after this scan's cooldown. The safe-haven bid that a textbook crisis playbook would expect has not shown up: gold is cooling further below its 200-day, TLT is deteriorating rather than catching a duration bid, and VIXY (17.00, RSI 31.5, -57.2% off its 52-week high) shows volatility crushed rather than spiking. Defense — the sector most directly named by this conflict — is the biggest surprise: instead of a war premium, the whole book sold off in the same week, tracking the broader Fed-rate-hike-driven equity selloff (Bloomberg's Sept 1 report of the Nasdaq 100's worst day in weeks) more than the war headline itself.

• Whether GLD's widening gap below its 200-day ($415.44, now -2.1%) closes or deepens further as the war continues — the single clearest test of whether this stays an inflation story or becomes a fear story too.
• Whether TLT's renewed deterioration (-5.75% 1Y, -4.7% vs its 200-day) continues if bond yields keep responding to oil-driven inflation fears.
• Whether VIXY's crushed reading (RSI 31.5, -57.2% off its 52-week high) persists through further escalation, or whether a volatility repricing is still to come.
• Whether defense's sector-wide pullback (LMT, RTX, GD, ITA, PPA all testing or below their 200-days) finds a floor at those levels or breaks down further — none of it has been explained by a defense-specific catalyst on file.
• Whether refiners (VLO RSI 75.2, PSX RSI 74.8) cool from near-overbought or push through to fresh highs as the oil bid continues.

Versus the 2026-08-28 scan: the oil complex flipped from a cooling, negative-weekly-change posture to a broadly positive one — XOM's 7-day change moved from -5.09% to +1.76%, COP from -3.40% to +3.02%, EOG from -6.33% to +1.26% — directly tracking the dated US-Iran escalation that began Sept 1. TLT reversed its prior improvement, its 200-day gap widening from -4.1% back to -4.7% as its 7-day change flipped from +1.01% to -0.80%. Gold's 200-day gap widened further, from -1.4% to -2.1%. Defense went from a "calm, differentiated" read to a synchronized sector-wide selloff, with LMT and GD both flipping from above to at/below their 200-days. Refiners VLO and PSX both pushed further into extension (RSI now 74-75). This scan marks the shift from "background item, not a live event" (the framing carried on the prior several scans) to an active, ongoing conflict with a coherent, sourced cross-asset signature.