Here's a scenario nobody's pricing in yet, but probably should be: what if Iran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz? What if instead of going back to the old normal, they just... keep charging ships to pass through?
It sounds far-fetched until you run the numbers. Let's do some napkin math, courtesy of a Reddit user who laid this out:
The strait handles about 20 million barrels of oil per day. At $70 per barrel, that's $1.4 billion in oil flowing through daily. A 2% toll on that comes to $28 million per day, or about $10 billion per year. For context, Iran's entire defense budget is around $10 billion annually.
In other words, Iran could fund its entire military just by charging a 2% fee on oil shipments. And that's before you add in LNG, fertilizer, aluminum, helium, and food imports that also move through the strait. The economics are absurdly good for them.
Now, would they actually do this? The conventional wisdom says no—Iran wants the conflict to end, global powers won't tolerate it, the U.S. Navy will keep the strait open, etc. But what if the U.S. just... leaves? The White House has floated the idea of withdrawing from the region without a peace deal. If that happens, Iran is left standing with a choke point that funds their government, and the Gulf states have to deal with it on their own.
If you think that's speculative, fine. But let's game out what it would mean for your portfolio if it happened.
Oil prices: Persistent upward pressure. Even a small toll increases the delivered cost of Gulf oil, which sets the global price. U.S. shale producers benefit because they're competing against what is essentially tariffed oil. That's good for domestic energy stocks, bad for everything else that depends on cheap energy.
Inflation: It doesn't go away. Oil at $100+ per barrel isn't a temporary spike anymore—it's the new baseline. That feeds into transportation costs, food prices (fertilizer from the Gulf gets more expensive), and anything else with an energy component. The Federal Reserve stays hawkish, rate cuts get pushed further out, and your bond portfolio stays under pressure.
Semiconductors: The global chip industry relies on helium from the Gulf for manufacturing. If helium shipments get tolled or disrupted, production costs go up. That's a margin hit for an industry already dealing with softening demand.
