Ships lined up in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, March 11, 2026.
Altaf Qadri | AP
While there is some hope that the United States and Iran may find a way out of the war, prediction market investors are unsure whether the Middle East’s key oil shipping route will be reopened in the coming weeks.
The probability that tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will “return to normal” by April 15 is below 25% in Karshi. But by June 1st, the odds drop to over 67%, and by July 1st, they drop to 76%.
Kalsi defined a return to normalcy as a seven-day rolling average of transit calls in Hormuz, tracked by IMF Portwatch, exceeding 60. Approximately $100,000 is being bet on the market.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passed before the war, became a flashpoint in the conflict. Iran has effectively halted trade in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea in response to military attacks by the United States and Israel, including the killing of its supreme leader on February 28, the first day of an airstrike.
President Trump said on Monday that the strait could be reopened “soon” as part of a plan to forge a deal with the Islamic Republic and delay attacks on Iran’s energy grid for five days. President Trump has said there is a possibility of sharing joint control of the strait with Iranian officials.
“They really want a deal, and we want a deal,” President Trump told reporters in Florida.
If free passage through the Straits is not resolved, “we will just keep attacking small minds,” he said.
President Trump’s comments on Monday came on the heels of a social media post saying the U.S. and Iran were holding “productive” talks. Wall Street welcomed progress toward a ceasefire, and stock prices rose accordingly. The war, now in its fourth week, has depressed U.S. stocks and sent oil prices soaring.
of Dow Jones Industrial Average Last week was the longest weekly decline since 2023. small cap stocks russell 2000 The index entered a correction late last week, falling more than 10% before rebounding on Monday.
In another Karsi market, bettors were betting 30% odds on the Strait of Hormuz as the seven-day average of April 1 transit calls was more than 10, IMF Portwatch reported. The total number of trade calls exceeded 100 on multiple days in February, according to PortWatch.
At the $1 million Polymarket forum, participants put a 39% chance that traffic in the Straits will return to normal by the end of April. That’s down from a high of about 80% hit earlier this month.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalsi have a commercial relationship that includes a minority investment in CNBC.
