Iran fired on tankers again last night. The Strait of Hormuz is back in play. Oil is climbing. The stock market sold off. And yet, buried inside this chaos is one of the cleanest investment setups I have seen in years.
Most investors are watching the headlines and worrying. I am watching the cash flows. When a chokepoint closes, somebody else opens a gate. That somebody gets paid every barrel, every tanker, every day.
Inside today's issue:
- THE BARREL: WTI climbed through $74 this morning as Iran gunboats shadowed tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Here is what the price chart is actually saying.
- THE GRID: Every Hormuz flare-up accelerates one policy trend in Washington. The nuclear build is no longer a debate. It is a construction schedule.
- THE PLAY: The B-quadrant question is not who wins this war. It is who collects the toll no matter who wins. I have a name.
- The last energy revolution made investors rich. The next one is already underway.
The Wire
Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei told state television this weekend that the Strait of Hormuz "cannot be the same as before." Iranian gunboats then proved the point, firing on three tankers attempting to pass. The U.S. Navy returned fire. One tanker diverted. Oil markets opened Monday with WTI at $74.11 and Brent at $78.60.
The Barrel
Oil is up roughly 40 percent since the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran first closed the strait. This latest incident comes after a partial ceasefire that traders briefly believed. The ceasefire is now in doubt. Tanker insurance premiums hit six times their pre-conflict rates. Every tanker that cannot pass through Hormuz has to go around the Cape of Good Hope. That adds 15 to 20 days per voyage. The freight cost goes up. The crude cost goes up. The gasoline price goes up. This is not volatility. This is a structural repricing of Middle Eastern oil.
The Grid
Every Hormuz flare accelerates the nuclear build in America. Energy security is now a national security argument, not just an economic one. The NRC approved two small modular reactor licenses in the last quarter. Data center operators signed long-term power purchase agreements with nuclear developers worth a combined $8 billion since January. This trend does not reverse when the strait reopens. The grid needs reliable domestic baseload power. Iran just made that argument for the next five Congresses.
The Policy Desk
The White House revoked Iran's oil export license Monday. Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control pulled the waiver that had allowed Iranian crude to flow to global markets as part of a memorandum of understanding signed weeks ago. That memo is now worth nothing. LNG export terminals on the Gulf Coast are running at capacity. Europe is buying every American cargo it can book. The policy play has shifted from "energy transition" to "energy security." These are different markets with different winners.
Here is the number that stopped me this morning. Twenty percent of the world's oil and 25 percent of its liquefied natural gas flows through the Strait of Hormuz every single day. Iran just told the world that strait is no longer safe. That creates one question every energy investor has to answer.
But first — our friend Porter Stansberry has been tracking something disturbing. Take a look:
The question. Who collects the toll when 20 percent of the world's oil supply cannot move freely?
The Investor Angle
The answer is not a bet on which side wins. The B-quadrant investor does not bet on wars. He bets on the infrastructure that both sides depend on regardless of who wins.
When Hormuz gets dangerous, four things happen automatically. First, U.S. domestic producers get a price premium. Second, pipelines that bypass the Gulf of Mexico become essential. Third, LNG export terminals become the most valuable real estate in America. Fourth, the nuclear buildout gets bipartisan political cover.
Energy stocks led all sectors in Q1 2026, up 37 percent. The XLE is already pricing in some of this. But the individual names that own the specific infrastructure: the pipelines, the LNG terminals, the domestic shale basins that can replace Middle Eastern supply, those are still at a discount to what this conflict implies.
I have spent this week looking at which companies own the toll booths. Not the oil itself. Not the tankers. The toll booths. The names that get paid per unit of throughput, no matter what barrel price does. No matter who sits in Tehran next year.
That is the play I am watching. And it gets stronger every time Iran fires on another tanker.
Chris Carroll
Publisher, Money, Power and Profit
P.S. For years, our friend Larry Benedict ran his own hedge fund, where he quietly generated over a quarter of a billion dollars in profit. Now he is pulling back the curtain on his top oil strategy. It has already helped his readers have a chance at payouts like $4,354, $4,783, and even $6,268. Watch the free presentation here.
You might also be interested in:
Trump to Unleash Giant $2.7 Trillion Gold Mine? (Paradigm Press)
Oil Prices Jump as Iran Warns Hormuz 'Cannot Be the Same' (Yahoo Finance)
Larry Benedict: A Better Way to Play Oil (Free Presentation)
US-Iran Conflict: Should You Buy Crude Oil or Energy Stocks in 2026? (TradingKey)
The Last Energy Revolution: Are You Positioned? (Behind the Markets)