Iran announces a transit-fee regime for Hormuz. US forces strike Iranian radar sites. The Desk weights three paths — and why the median Brent of $91 may be the wrong number to position for.
Voiceover transcript
Welcome to The Probability Desk. Today is Thursday, June 11, 2026. Today's scenario: the Hormuz transit-fee gambit. Here are the three weights.
On June 8, Iran's ambassador to Moscow announced the Strait of Hormuz would reopen under new conditions — including first-ever transit fees jointly administered with Oman. Twenty million barrels a day transited this strait before the closure on March 4. That flow is now down ninety to ninety-five percent. Then, on June 10, US forces struck Iranian radar and drone sites. Iran responded with missiles in the Gulf. The announcement has not produced a military stand-down.
The Probability Desk assigns three scenarios. Base case — forty-five percent — contested partial restoration. Hormuz reaches forty to sixty-five percent of pre-crisis flows by September 10. Brent stabilizes in the eighty-eight to one hundred range. The Fed holds all year.
Upside — twenty-five percent — rapid normalization. Trump signs a deal. Fees waived. Hormuz hits eighty percent. Brent falls to seventy-five to eighty-eight.
Tail — thirty percent — re-escalation to nuclear-facility strikes. Hormuz re-closes. Brent surges to one hundred fifteen to one hundred thirty-five.
Our Monte Carlo ran fifty thousand paths. The median Brent at September 10 is ninety-one dollars. But the critical insight is the shape: the distribution is bimodal. Near-equal probability of a sub-eighty-five dollar world and a one-hundred-plus dollar world. The median is the wrong number to position for.
For universal owners, the issue is not just the oil price. It is the structural precedent. If Iran's transit-fee regime holds, every major maritime chokepoint — Malacca, the Bosphorus, the Danish Straits — becomes a potential toll-gate. We estimate this impairs the globalization dividend embedded in long-horizon return models by thirty to seventy basis points annually.
Five indicators worth watching: Hormuz daily tanker transits, Brent above one hundred five, Kevin Warsh's June 16-17 press conference tone, any confirmed strike on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, and a formal signed US-Iran deal.
The full scenario report — including the Bayesian evidence-update table, the universal-owner portfolio heatmap, and the Watch Dashboard — is live at universalassetowners.com. Editorial scenario analysis only.
Read the full daily brief
universalassetowners.com →