Traders opened a record volume of Brent put options (contracts that gain value as prices fall) on Tuesday, with preliminary ICE Futures Europe data cited by Bloomberg showing more than 764,000 contracts. Some of the largest trades involved December $70/$69 put spreads, which exceeded 110,000 contracts and pay only if Brent, the global oil benchmark, falls below $70. The record volume does not necessarily represent outright bearish conviction because narrow spreads accounted for more than half of the day’s activity and are often used to hedge existing positions. Brent had traded near $106 on September 14 before briefly falling below $98 on Tuesday, marking its sixth consecutive daily decline and longest losing streak since August 2025. The decline reversed a war-driven rally as the Strait of Hormuz remained largely shut. Selling followed a three-hour meeting at the UN General Assembly between U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, which President Donald Trump described as productive. Iran said it could reopen Hormuz within seven days if Washington eased military pressure, lifted the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and released frozen assets. Saudi Aramco also restarted its East-West pipeline, which carries crude to Yanbu on the Red Sea and avoids Hormuz, after drones disabled it on September 13. Oil stabilized on Wednesday, with Brent spot near $96.64 and U.S. crude up 1.1% at about $94.63, according to TradingView data. A move to $70 would require another roughly 28% decline. No U.S.-Iran agreement has been announced, while the Saudi pipeline restarted at a low rate and restoring about 4 million barrels a day could take weeks, a security source said. Earlier this month, JPMorgan dropped its forecast baseline, saying it could no longer model the war’s endgame.