The Brief.

USD/BDT pinned at 122.75 with a zero buy-sell spread is not a sign that the currency has found its level — it is a sign that the price has not yet been allowed to find one. Gross reserves at $34.12bn cover roughly 4.2 months of imports on the BPM6 measure, sub-3 months stripping out swaps and IFI buffers. The arithmetic of a managed float at this reserves level requires that the central bank either widen the spread (allowing some depreciation pressure to discharge cleanly) or call in additional standby support. The first option is politically constrained heading into a budget cycle. The second is what the donor-support request signals. Pre-positioning EUR and GBP payable capacity in the next two weeks looks cheap insurance against a wider repricing that, if it comes, will not come gradually.

Brent at $108 reflects Hormuz risk priced once — the May incident, the strait reopening, and the partial restoration of insurance capacity. What it does not yet price is the second-incident scenario: a repeated closure attempt within a 30-day window, which would force shippers and underwriters to treat the lane as structurally compromised rather than situationally disrupted. For the import book, the operational window is short. Energy LCs already in flight at 90-day tenor will be honored; new issuance at the same terms is being mispriced if the underwriters have not adjusted for sequence risk. The desk's stance is to cap new energy-sector LC issuance at 60-day tenor pending OPEC+ supply guidance and to require 110% cash margin on fuel imports above $5m. The asymmetry favors caution: the cost of being early is small, the cost of being late is unhedgeable.