DUBAI, Aug. 17 -- The deadline that was supposed to decide the oil year arrived on Monday. Brent moved twenty cents.

That is the whole market reaction to the expiry of the memorandum Donald Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian signed in June, the document meant to end a war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It ran out with no extension, with Washington and Tehran each insisting the strait belongs to it, and with crude sitting almost exactly where it closed on Friday.

Oil prices today: Brent crude is at $88.31 a barrel, down about 0.24 percent, against Friday's settlement of $88.52. West Texas Intermediate is a little above $82, effectively unchanged from Friday's $82.40. Both benchmarks gained more than five percent last week and crude is up roug...