- Issued
- Data cutoff
- Horizon
- 135 days
- Resolves by
- Next review
- Epistemic class
- Forecast (modeled, not observed)
- Evidence status
- provisional
How this resolves
Resolves TRUE if a named commercial or institutional transit-tracking source (IMF PortWatch, Kpler, or an equivalent publishing a Hormuz daily-transit series) reports an October 2026 average below 100 ship transits per day. Resolves FALSE if the reported average is 100 or above. Because no Tier A body currently publishes a consolidated verified Hormuz daily-transit series, this forecast resolves UNRESOLVABLE if no such source publishes a comparable October 2026 average — and Warconomy will record it as unresolvable rather than substituting a weaker proxy.
Resolution source: IMF PortWatch or a named commercial transit tracker publishing a Hormuz daily-transit series
Assumptions
- Pre-crisis Hormuz traffic was reported at more than 100 ships per day; the post-MOU recovery was reported at only 38-43 daily transits.
- The 17-18 June 2026 U.S.-Iran memorandum initiated a 60-day negotiating window rather than a settled permanent arrangement, and its terms over control of the strait were reported as contested.
- Reported renewed vessel strikes from 7 July 2026 suppress rather than accelerate a return to normal traffic.
Leading indicators to watch
- Whether the 60-day negotiating window from the June memorandum produces a permanent agreement
- War-risk insurance availability and pricing for Gulf transits
- Whether reported vessel strikes continue past July 2026
What would make this wrong
- A permanent U.S.-Iran settlement with verified free transit and a rapid traffic normalization.
- Evidence that the reported July 2026 strike escalation was substantially inaccurate.
- No tracking source publishing a comparable October 2026 figure (resolves unresolvable, not false).
Weak-source disclosure
Competing evidence
Credible sources point in different directions here. Both readings are shown rather than averaged into a single false number.
- Evidence toward normalization: the June 2026 memorandum did produce a real, measurable traffic recovery to a reported 38-43 daily transits, and the EIA judged the reopening significant enough to cut its 2026 Brent forecast by roughly $13/b. — EIA — Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO)
- Evidence toward persistence: reported strikes resumed 7 July 2026 and escalated 11-13 July, with the interim arrangement's terms reportedly contested by Tehran — suggesting the recovery was fragile rather than durable. — Open-source Strait of Hormuz transit tracking and news aggregation
Known data gaps
- No Tier A consolidated Hormuz daily-transit series exists that Warconomy can read directly — the single largest gap in this forecast, and the reason its resolution criteria explicitly permit an unresolvable outcome.
Methodology
Asks whether something that is currently disrupted will still be disrupted by a certain date, on the reasoning that shipping and insurance decisions unwind slowly.
Uncertainty: Coarse probability band reflecting how far the current value sits from the threshold relative to its recent volatility.
Validation: Resolved against the named publishing authority's own figure at the resolution date. Baseline: 'persistence' (assume today's state simply continues), which this model must beat to be worth running.
Full model card: Threshold persistence v1.0.
Sources
| Source | Type | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Open-source Strait of Hormuz transit tracking and news aggregation | Industry | global-energy-flow.com/hormuz/ |
| EIA — Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) | Official | www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/ |
All forecast fields (accessible table)
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Forecast ID | fc-2026-07-18-hormuz-transits-below-prewar |
| Target variable | Strait of Hormuz average daily ship transits |
| Target event | Average daily Hormuz ship transits during October 2026 remain below 100 per day (the reported pre-crisis level) |
| Prediction | likely (roughly 60-80%) |
| Issue date | 2026-07-18 |
| Data cutoff | 2026-07-18 |
| Horizon (days) | 135 |
| Resolution date | 2026-11-30 |
| Resolution source | IMF PortWatch or a named commercial transit tracker publishing a Hormuz daily-transit series |
| Status | active |
| Epistemic class | forecast |
| Evidence status | provisional |
| Model | threshold-persistence-v1 v1.0 |
| Hindcast | No |
Machine-readable: /forecasts/data.json