New Delhi, July 24 -- NEW YORK - Southwest Airlines shipped jet fuel by boat from Texas to Los Angeles for the first time in the company's history on Thursday, a workaround that no airline wants to explain and that captured better than any market chart what the Iran conflict has done to American supply chains. On the same day, Brent crude closed above $100 a barrel and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 500 points as Houthi forces struck Saudi Aramco-affiliated tankers in the Red Sea.

a conflict with no visible near-term end is keeping a floor under energy prices that no post-war inventory drawdown has yet broken through.

Equity markets responded across the board. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 500 po...