Iran and the U.S. agreed on something. That happened. The thing they agreed on was letting ships leave the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. More than 11,000 seafarers have been stuck there. Not stuck like your portfolio is stuck. Stuck like actually can't leave because geopolitical tensions turned a major shipping lane into a parking lot.
The maritime organization calls this a large-scale evacuation plan. Evacuations are for hurricanes and war zones. These people were just trying to deliver containerized goods. They showed up to work and couldn't leave for weeks. Imagine your boss telling you that you can't go home because two countries hate each other. Now imagine you're on a cargo ship with no cell service watching the same hundred meters of water for forty days.
Retail traders will see this headline and immediately check crude oil futures. They'll draw lines on a chart. They'll convince themselves the Strait of Hormuz reopening is bullish for tanker stocks or bearish for energy or some other conclusion they'll reverse by Thursday. Not one of them will think about the guy who's been eating freeze-dried pasta on a Liberian-flagged vessel since May because Iran and the U.S. couldn't work out their differences.
The ships will start moving soon. The sailors will rotate off. Supply chains will adjust by half a percentage point. By next month nobody will remember this happened. Some day trader in Milwaukee will still be holding his USO calls wondering why they expired worthless. He'll never connect it to the Strait. He doesn't know where the Strait is.
The evacuation plan is backed by two governments that agree on almost nothing else. That's how bad it got. They had to cooperate just to let people leave.
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