“Strait of Hormuz traffic may not return to normal for 12 months or more, according to prediction markets”

What actually happened

Kalshi's event contract on whether Strait of Hormuz shipping returns to normal, defined as a seven-day moving average of transit calls above 60 verified against IMF PortWatch data, saw its "by July 2027" odds fall from roughly 70% to 47% over two days. The drop came after the U.S. launched a 13th consecutive night of strikes against Iranian targets, with President Trump signaling a further "massive attack" against Iran. Kpler's Matt Smith told CNBC the Houthi attacks on Saudi tankers add a further complication, saying "We're pushing that reopening into next year."

Key facts

• Chances that the strait's traffic flow is normal by July 2027 plummeted to 47% from nearly 70% in the past two days.
• Odds of ship traffic resuming normally this year stand at 38%, while odds are only somewhat better, at 48%, that regular shipments will be reached before April 2027.
• Kalshi's event contract would resolve if the seven-day moving average of transit calls is above 60 in data verified by IMF Portwatch, and the current seven-day moving average of transit calls is about 12, down from a pre-conflict baseline that a separate forecasting tracker put at 93.7 across 2025 and as high as 107.3 in late February 2026, before crashing to a low of 2.7 in late March.
• The contract cited is Kalshi-specific; Polymarket has run a parallel but separately-priced market on the same underlying question, so "prediction markets" (plural) in the headline compresses two distinct, sometimes-diverging books into one.
• CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment, disclosed at the foot of the article, not in the headline or lede.

What to watch for

Watch whether the 7% swing (47% to 38-48% across contracts) holds or reverses if Reuters' reported Pakistan-brokered talks gain traction; a de-escalation could flip these odds fast given how thin and volatile the contract has proven over just 48 hours. Also watch whether CNBC's recurring "Kalshi traders now think…" series (June 8, July 8, July 24) keeps pushing the same deadline back, a pattern that says as much about market noise as about the strait itself.