Prediction market bettors aren't confident that a key oil passageway in the Middle East will reopen in the next few weeks, despite some hope that the U.S. and Iran might find a way out of the war.
Odds that tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will "return to normal" before April 15 are below 25% on Kalshi. By June 1, however, odds shorten to more than 67%, and by July 1 to 76%.
Kalshi defines a return to normal as the seven-day moving average of Hormuz transit calls topping 60, as tracked by IMF PortWatch. Roughly $100,000 has been wagered in the market.
The Strait of Hormuz â through which some 20% of the world's crude oil transited before the war â has become a flash point in the conflict. Iran has effectively halted trade between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea in response to U.S.-Israeli military strikes, including the killing of its supreme leader on Feb. 28, the first day of airstrikes.
President Trump said Monday that the Strait could reopen "very soon" as part of his plan to delay attacks on the Iranian energy grid for five days in hopes of striking a deal with the Islamic Republic. Trump said that he and Iranian officials could share joint control of the strait.
"They want, very much to make a deal. We'd like to make a deal too," Trump told reporters in Florida.
If free passage through the strait isn't settled, "we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out," he said.
Trump's comments Monday came shortly after an earlier social media post saying that the U.S. and Iran were engaged in "productive" talks. Stocks rallied in response, as Wall Street cheered any perceived progress toward a ceasefire in the war, which is now in its fourth week and has pushed down U.S. stocks and driven oil prices sharply higher.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average last week suffered its longest weekly decline since 2023. The small-cap Russell 2000 index entered a correction late last week, falling more than 10% before rebounding on Monday.
In a separate Kalshi market, bettors were placing 30% odds on the Strait of Hormuz seeing a seven-day average of transit calls above 10 on April 1, as reported by IMF PortWatch. Total trade calls surpassed 100 on multiple days in February, according to PortWatch.
In a $1 million Polymarket forum, participants see a 39% chance that traffic in the strait will normalize by the end of April. That's down from a high of nearly 80% earlier this month.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes a CNBC minority investment.
