- Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by December 31?27¢
This market will resolve to “Yes” if IMF Portwatch publishes a 7-day moving average of transit calls (“Arrivals of Ships”) for the Strait of Hormuz equal to or above 60 for any date between market creation and December 31, 2026. Otherwise, this market will resolve to “No”. Daily transit calls include container, dry bulk, roll-on/roll-off, general cargo, and tanker ships. Ships not reported by IMF Portwatch will not be considered. This market will resolve as soon as IMF Portwatch publishes a 7-day moving average of transit calls equal to or above the specified level, or once data has been published for the final date in the specified period and no such value has been published. If no data has been published for the final date of the specified period within 14 calendar days (ET) after the end of that period, this market will resolve based on data published up to that point. Revisions to previously published data points made within this market’s timeframe will be considered. However, they will not disqualify a previously published data point from qualifying. Revisions to previously published data points after data is published for December 31, 2026, however, will not be considered. In case of obvious data integrity issues (i.e., erroneous data), the market may remain open until the end of the third calendar day (ET) after the date on which such data is first released to allow for corrections. Data integrity issues refer only to clerical or other similar errors in the underlying data, and do not include cases where IMF Portwatch differs from alternative sources. The resolution source for this market will be IMF Portwatch, specifically the transit calls data published for the Strait of Hormuz at https://portwatch.imf.org/pages/cb5856222a5b4105adc6ee7e880a1730, both in the chart and through downloadable files.
Ongoing US-Iran tensions and Iranian assertions of control over the Strait of Hormuz have kept commercial traffic far below pre-conflict levels, supporting trader expectations that normal volumes will not resume by year-end. Since the February 2026 outbreak of hostilities, transits have remained severely constrained by mines in the standard traffic separation scheme, GPS interference, IRGC enforcement of approved routes, and repeated attacks on vessels, including drone strikes that prompted the International Maritime Organization to pause evacuation plans. A mid-June preliminary agreement briefly lifted daily crossings toward 57% of pre-war averages, but renewed exchanges—including US strikes on Iranian targets and Iranian responses—collapsed the ceasefire by early July. As of early September 2026, throughput stands at roughly 7% of normal, with only a handful of daily transits, approximately 390 vessels stranded, and war-risk premiums at 40 times peacetime rates. These structural security, insurance, and sanctions barriers, combined with Iran's insistence on managing passage, indicate that sustained normalization remains unlikely in the remaining months.