Dear Reader,
This morning, Donald Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran over.
The U.S. carried out new strikes on Iranian positions. Iran responded by hitting an airbase in Kuwait and the Fifth Fleet naval base in Bahrain. Oil jumped 7% before noon. The Dow dropped 500 points at the open.
The mainstream crowd is watching the stock ticker. The smart money is watching the Strait of Hormuz. 21 million barrels of oil pass through that channel every single day.
Inside today's issue:
- The barrel: WTI just broke $75. OPEC+ added 188,000 barrels a day this month. It does not matter. When Hormuz closes, supply schedules are fiction.
- The grid: Trump's DOE hit its July 4 goal. Three small modular reactors reached criticality at Idaho National Lab. The regulatory fast-track that makes it possible is now a blueprint.
- The play: When geopolitical shocks spike prices, one set of assets collects the toll regardless of who wins the war. The pattern is 50 years old and still works.
- The last energy revolution made investors rich. The next one is already underway.
THE BARREL
WTI crude settled at $74.26 yesterday. This morning it spiked to $76 intraday on the Iran news. That is a $6 move in 18 hours.
OPEC+ voted last week to add 188,000 barrels per day to global supply starting this month. The math said that was bearish. Iran changed the math.
Shell published a warning at the end of June: if Hormuz disruptions continue through September, global LNG trade goes flat for 2026. Flat meaning the 40 million tons of new LNG supply hitting the market this year gets stuck. Buyers in Asia go short. Spot prices spike. U.S. exporters hold the hand everyone wants.
The EIA revised its Brent forecast down to $70 by Q4 2026 in its June outlook. That report was written before today. The Strait is not in the model.
THE GRID
Politico confirmed it on July 1: the Trump DOE hit its self-set goal of three small modular reactors reaching criticality at Idaho National Lab by July 4.
The larger story is not the reactors. It is the process. Trump issued an executive order giving the Department of Energy authority to bypass the NRC approval bottleneck on advanced reactors. Three reactors just proved the bypass works.
Electricity demand is projected to rise 12% by 2028. Data centers alone are adding gigawatts faster than the grid can absorb them. The SMR blueprint at Idaho is the first answer that does not depend on Chinese solar panels or Russian uranium.
THE POLICY DESK
Thirty-two NATO leaders are in Istanbul this week. Iran has taken center stage at the summit. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said this morning that the U.S. must react forcefully when Iran violates a ceasefire.
This matters for energy because NATO members just committed at The Hague last year to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. European defense budgets are expanding by hundreds of billions. Energy security is defense. The two budgets are merging.
Section 301 tariffs affecting more than 60 trade jurisdictions expire July 24. The administration will replace them with new measures before that deadline. Every energy import price is set to move.
There is one number I have been watching that ties all three of these stories together. It tells you exactly which assets benefit when the world cannot agree on a ceasefire, cannot build the grid fast enough, and cannot keep the tariff schedule stable.
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THE INVESTOR ANGLE
Here is the number: 21 million.
That is the barrels per day flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. About 21% of global oil supply. When that strait is under threat, every energy infrastructure asset on earth collects a premium. Not the oil itself. The pipes, the terminals, the processing facilities, the storage.
My rich dad taught me to look for the toll booth, not the car. The car can crash. The toll booth collects regardless.
Iran can close the strait for days or weeks. It cannot close it forever. But every time it threatens to, energy infrastructure in the Western hemisphere reprices. LNG terminals on the Gulf Coast. Pipeline operators moving Permian crude east. Storage REITs holding strategic inventory.
The Idaho SMR story adds a second layer. If the U.S. is fast-tracking nuclear capacity at the same time Persian Gulf supply routes are under fire, the power grid buildout accelerates. That means copper. That means steel. That means the contractors who build the infrastructure that no one can do without.
The pattern is 50 years old. Every Middle East shock spikes energy prices short-term. Every spike accelerates domestic energy infrastructure long-term. The toll booth always wins.
Position in the toll booths. Not the war.
Chris Carroll
Publisher, Money, Power and Profit
P.S. When the market crashed 37% in 2008, our friend Larry Benedict made $95 million for his clients. Now he is sounding the alarm on oil. He warns that high oil prices could strangle the U.S. economy. Yet where others see disaster, Larry sees one of the biggest opportunities in 40 years, and a way for regular folks to profit without owning a single oil stock. Watch the free presentation here.
You might also be interested in:
Trump to Unleash Giant $2.7 Trillion Gold Mine? — Jim Rickards
Oil prices jump 7% as Trump declares Iran ceasefire over (CNBC, July 8, 2026)
Larry Benedict: A Better Way to Play Oil (Free Presentation)
Hormuz disruption to stall 2026 LNG trade, demand to rise by 2050, says Shell (Reuters)