Crude at $89.89 holds the day; gold at $4,480 keeps the hedge bid

WTI settled at $89.89 a barrel, up 49 cents on the session, or 0.49 percent. On any other tape that is a rounding error. On this tape — with Iran-related headlines refusing to leave the front page and Qatari mediation back in the conversation around the Strait of Hormuz — a 0.49 percent day counts as the market exhaling. Implied ranges in front-month crude have been running well wide of half a percent for most of May; today closed inside that range, not outside it.

That is the headline number,…