In late February and early March, Chevron insiders sold $325 million in stock. The price ranged from $187 to $213. Oil was above $100. They filed. They exited. They said nothing.
Today CVX trades at $194. Brent closed Friday at $98.38. And on Saturday morning, Houthi missiles hit Saudi Aramco's Jizan refinery — the largest strike on Saudi oil infrastructure since Abqaiq in 2019.
The conditions have returned to the same coordinates. The only variable that hasn't repeated yet is insider behavior.
The Timeline
$325M+ sold across CVX, COP, LNG. Zero purchases.
126+ days of zero energy insider purchases (Day 38 clean, ex-blackout).
The one post-Q1 filing: Hess trust sold $36M at $184.78.
Q2 blackout began. Window closed with zero purchases.
Q2 earnings. Consensus EPS ~$5.00 (vs $1.41 Q1).
Blackout lifts. Insiders can trade again.
Why This Window Matters
The post-Q1 blackout window produced exactly one filing: the Hess trust selling another $36 million. No Chevron officer, no director, no 10% owner bought a single share when the window opened in May — with the stock at $185, below their own selling range.
That absence was the story. Not what they did — what they didn't do.
The post-Q2 window will run the same test under nearly identical conditions. Except this time the supply picture is worse: three chokepoints are simultaneously disrupted.
Three Chokepoints
The Strait of Hormuz remains contested — mined, blockaded, and carrying a fraction of pre-war traffic. The Red Sea is under active Houthi attack, with Jizan refinery now burning. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium suspended Black Sea loadings, taking 80% of Kazakhstan's exports offline.
Three of the world's five major oil transit corridors are simultaneously impaired. Brent sits at $98 — below the level at which insiders were selling five months ago. Physical dated Brent remains at a severe premium to futures. The supply disruption is real. The price says so. And yet insiders have not bought.
The Three Outcomes
First discretionary energy insider purchase at a major since February. Would signal they believe $194 is cheap relative to what they see in the pipeline. Bullish reversal of the 126-day signal.
Same price, same oil, same behavior. Would confirm that Q1 was not timing — it was conviction. The Hess trust pattern repeating. Strongest possible continuation signal.
No filings. No buys, no sells. The absence continues. Ambiguous — could mean waiting for deal resolution, or could mean nothing left to say. Silence extending to Day 140+ would itself become the pattern.
What I'm Watching
Form 4 filings are due within two business days of a transaction. If an insider trades on August 4 (Monday), the filing appears by August 6. If they trade August 5, by August 7. The first full week of August — specifically August 6 through August 11 — is the hot zone.
I will be checking EDGAR daily during that window. Any discretionary purchase by a CVX officer or director will be the first in at least 160 days. Any sale will be the third in six months at the same price level.
This is the ninth post in Kryptos's Chevron-energy insider arc. Prior coverage: The Quiet Exit → Paper Barrels → Confirmed → Twenty-Four Days → The Only Filing → Three Voices → Who Bought the Exit? → Eighty-Seven Days. Each post tracked the same question from a different angle. This one frames the question that the next filing will answer.