How the contract works
A contract on this question settles at $1 if PortWatch records a seven-day moving average of 60 or more ship arrivals through the Strait of Hormuz on any day up to 30 November 2026, and at $0 if that threshold is never reached in the data available, including a 14-day grace period for late-published figures. The price at any moment is simply the market's current estimate of how likely that recovery is โ a contract priced at 0.30, for example, would mean traders collectively see about a three-in-ten chance of the threshold being hit in time, not that anyone is certain either way. Revisions to PortWatch data made within that window count toward resolution; revisions published after the final tally do not. Positions can typically be sold before 30 November 2026 at whatever price the market is offering at that moment, rather than held to settlement.
Yes14%
No86%
Probability
How the price has moved
Trading in this contract has been concentrated on a single venue, Polymarket, where cumulative volume stands at $299,001 โ a meaningful sum for a single-outcome geopolitical contract. The price has settled near a low level, consistent with traders judging a full recovery in Hormuz shipping traffic within this window as unlikely rather than merely uncertain. With no second venue to compare against, there is no visible spread to read as active disagreement; the figures available describe a concentrated, fairly one-sided view rather than a contested price discovery process.
Analysis
Context
The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. It is one of the world's most important oil and gas shipping corridors, and disruptions there ripple through tanker insurance, freight rates and, eventually, fuel prices in importing countries. IMF PortWatch, a data project run with the IMF, tracks daily ship arrivals through the strait using AIS vessel-tracking data, covering container ships, dry bulk carriers, roll-on/roll-off vessels, general cargo ships and tankers.
This contract defines "normal" as a seven-day moving average of at least 60 ship arrivals โ a level PortWatch data shows as the typical pre-disruption baseline. Traffic has fallen below that mark, and the question is whether it climbs back to 60 or higher on any single day recorded by PortWatch before the 30 November 2026 resolution date. If it does, the contract resolves Yes immediately, whenever that happens. If not, PortWatch data published up to 14 days after the deadline is used as a fallback before the contract resolves No.
The consensus price of 10% across the only venue tracking this, Polymarket, is a firm signal: traders see the odds of a full traffic recovery inside this window as low, not merely uncertain. With $299,001 in cumulative volume behind that price and only one venue quoting it, there is no cross-venue spread to read for disagreement โ the number reflects a single, reasonably liquid pool of opinion rather than a contested market split between optimists and pessimists on different platforms.
The structural reason for a low price is the calendar. The resolution date is 30 November 2026, roughly eleven and a half weeks from today, 11 September 2026. Reaching 60 transits on a seven-day moving average is not a single good shipping day โ it requires an entire week of arrivals averaging at that level, meaning any recovery has to be both real and sustained, not a brief rebound followed by another pullback. That raises the bar considerably compared with a threshold defined on a single day's count.
What would move this number is de-escalation that shipping lines and their insurers actually trust enough to resume full routing through the strait. Tanker and cargo operators do not resume normal transit patterns on the basis of a ceasefire announcement alone; war-risk insurance premiums, flag-state guidance and charterer risk assessments all have to catch up, and that process has historically lagged behind political headlines by weeks. Because PortWatch data is published with only a short lag, any genuine recovery in transit volumes would show up in the seven-day average within days, which is why the market's price should be read as a judgment about the underlying security and insurance situation, not about the transparency of the data itself.
History in the region offers a caution: previous periods of elevated Gulf shipping risk, tied to tanker incidents and regional tensions, have taken months rather than weeks to fully unwind even after direct hostilities eased, as commercial shipping decisions move more slowly than diplomatic ones. That pattern is consistent with a market pricing a low probability for a recovery compressed into an eleven-week window.
What moves the probability
Regional security situation
Continued tension involving Iran and its neighbors keeps shipping lines cautious about routing through the strait at pre-disruption density. Any verified, durable de-escalation is the single biggest lever that could push transit volumes back toward 60; absent that, the price has little reason to move higher.
Insurance and charterer risk pricing
War-risk premiums and charterer guidance for Gulf transits typically adjust slower than headlines, meaning even a political thaw does not immediately translate into full shipping schedules. This lag works against a Yes resolution inside a fixed eleven-week window.
The sustained-average requirement
The threshold requires a seven-day moving average of 60 or more, not a single strong day, which raises the bar well above a temporary spike in traffic. This structural feature of the resolution rule is a persistent drag on the probability regardless of short-term news.
Time remaining before 30 November 2026
With roughly eleven and a half weeks left as of 11 September 2026, the window for a full recovery to register and hold is short. Each week that passes without a clear turn in the data narrows the room for a Yes outcome.
PortWatch data reporting
Because resolution depends on a specific data feed, any lag or gap in PortWatch's published figures near the deadline pushes the effective decision toward the 14-day fallback window rather than resolving early. This is a mechanical factor separate from the shipping situation itself.
The case for
- A verified and durable de-escalation involving Iran materializes well before late November 2026, giving insurers and shipping lines time to normalize war-risk pricing and routing decisions.
- Major flag states, charterers and tanker operators publicly resume standard Hormuz transit patterns rather than continuing to reroute or delay.
- PortWatch's seven-day moving average climbs to and holds at 60 or above on at least one reporting day before 30 November 2026, or within the 14-day grace period that follows.
- The recovery is sustained for a full week rather than a brief rebound, satisfying the moving-average design of the threshold.
The case against
- No durable resolution to the underlying regional tension emerges within the roughly eleven-week window remaining, leaving shipping lines cautious.
- Insurance and charterer risk assessments, which historically adjust more slowly than political developments, do not catch up in time even if diplomatic conditions improve.
- The requirement for a sustained seven-day average, rather than a single strong day, makes a fast recovery structurally harder to achieve.
- The market consensus of 10%, backed by $299,001 in volume on the only venue quoting this contract, reflects a one-sided view with no visible disagreement pulling the price higher.
What to watch
The key date is 30 November 2026, when the contract resolves based on IMF PortWatch's published seven-day moving average of transit calls, with a 14-day grace period afterward if final data lags. Between now and then, the figures to track are the PortWatch daily arrival counts themselves, published at portwatch.imf.org, along with any diplomatic developments involving Iran, the US, or regional actors that could ease shipping risk. Announcements from major tanker insurers or classification societies about war-risk premiums for Gulf transits would be an earlier signal of a shift than the traffic data itself, since insurance decisions typically precede a change in routing behavior.
Trade this contract
Open on Polymarket
- gas covered
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