The Middle East oil chokepoints: an early warning for markets and your money

What. How many ships are passing through the Strait of Hormuz each day, shown as a 7-day average, because the daily satellite count naturally swings a lot. The data comes from PortWatch (run by the International Monetary Fund) and runs about four days behind.

Why. This is as close to ground truth as this page gets. Fewer ships moving means someone, insurers, shipping lines, or the Iranian navy, has decided it isn’t safe to sail through.

How to read. The chart shows every single day for the past year, so you can see the whole story: the ~95-a-day normal, the rush of ships racing through before the closure, the collapse, and any recovery since. The score compares the current average with a normal healthy day. At or above normal, the strait is open for business; a collapse toward zero means it’s effectively closed.

Data timing. PortWatch processes the satellite data and releases once a week, so the newest day shown is usually four to six days back, a publishing rhythm, not a gap in the strait.

What. How often aircraft flying near the strait report their GPS signal getting scrambled, based on data from ADS-B Exchange, a flight-tracking service (via GPSJam), not ships.

Why. Militaries jam GPS to cover their movements, and jamming tends to spike before things get worse on the ground. It’s an early tremor, not the earthquake itself.

How to read. Higher means more GPS jamming, a form of electronic warfare, in the area. Because it’s measured in the air, treat it as a leading hint about the region, not a direct read on the water.

What. How many oil tankers are sailing all the way around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) each day instead of the shortcut through the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait. That makes this the clearest read on ships avoiding Bab el-Mandeb: when the Red Sea gate gets dangerous, the long way round Africa is where they go. (The Strait of Hormuz has no such bypass, it is the only way out of the Persian Gulf, so a diversion here is really a Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb story.) From IMF PortWatch satellite data, about four days behind.

Why. When the Middle East gets dangerous, ship owners reroute the long way around Africa, adding a week or more to the voyage. A rising number here is physical proof that vessels are actually avoiding the region, not just that traders are nervous.

How to read. Higher means more tankers taking the long way around. It’s judged against its own recent normal: near normal reads calm; a clear climb means rerouting is picking up, one of the cleanest confirmations that the disruption is real and turning into longer, costlier voyages.

Data timing. Same weekly PortWatch release as the ship-traffic card, so the newest day is usually four to six days back.

What. How many ships were attacked at either oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea, in the past 7 days. For now this is compiled from Wikipedia’s running record of vessels attacked during the war, which aggregates official UKMTO advisories and press reporting. We’re wiring in the official UKMTO/MARAD feeds directly, which will replace this source.

Why. GPS jamming is a side-effect of conflict; this is the conflict itself. When insurers and shipping lines decide whether the strait is safe, attacks on vessels are what they read.

How to read. Zero is genuinely calm, quiet weeks are real data, not missing data. One or two incidents a week means the strait is contested; several a week matches the worst stretches of the crisis. Because it’s compiled from a community-maintained record, the very latest days can lag by a day or two. Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), citing UKMTO and press reports.

What. How many ships are passing through Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow gate at the bottom of the Red Sea, and the second chokepoint to be threatened in this war. From the same IMF PortWatch satellite data as the Hormuz count, shown as a 7-day average.

Why. On July 20, 2026 the Houthis declared a blockade of Saudi Arabia and threatened to close this strait outright. With Hormuz already disrupted, both gates closing would choke roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and gas. This card is where that threat either shows up in steel and water, or doesn’t.

How to read. One honest caveat: this corridor was ALREADY running at roughly half its historic traffic before this threat (ships have avoided the Red Sea since the earlier Houthi campaigns), so the comparison here is against its recent, degraded normal, not the old world. Near that recent normal reads calm; a clear drop below it means the second gate is actively closing.

Data timing. Same weekly PortWatch release as the Hormuz ship-traffic card, so the newest day shown is usually four to six days back.

What. How much of the world’s news coverage is about conflict at the Strait of Hormuz, attacks, strikes, seizures, drones, measured by GDELT, a project that monitors news media globally in real time.

Why. It’s a second conflict signal beside GPS jamming, and a fast one: coverage spikes within hours of an incident. But it measures media attention, not the event itself, big stories echo, and quiet escalation can go under-covered.

How to read. The number is how many times its typical level coverage is running, 1× is normal, 1.5× reads Elevated, 3× or more reads Danger: something significant likely happened (or is being heavily re-reported). The chart and its hover show the underlying raw share of all monitored world articles. Treat it as a sentiment tripwire, not ground truth.

Data timing. Media coverage is measured in daily buckets that firm up through the day. On July 20, 2026 we broadened the search to cover both chokepoints (Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb/Red Sea) as the conflict spread; the 'vs normal' comparison re-centers itself within a couple of weeks of that change.

What. The gap between what the U.S. government pays to borrow for ten years and for three months. Normally long-term borrowing costs more; when it costs LESS, the curve is “inverted”.

Why. This is the most reliable recession warning economists have found, and the earliest: it has preceded essentially every modern U.S. recession, typically by twelve to seventeen months. The New York Fed uses this exact ten-year-minus-three-month version in its own recession model.

How to read. Positive and wide (above about 1.5 points) is a healthy, normal economy. As it flattens toward zero, borrowing conditions are tightening. Below zero it is inverted, the classic warning. The deepest inversion on record is about minus 1.9 points, which is where this scale tops out. Remember the lead time is long: an inversion signals trouble roughly a year out, not next week.

Data timing. Published every business day with about a one-day lag.

What. The extra interest that riskier American companies have to pay to borrow, compared with the U.S. government. Measured by the ICE BofA US High Yield index and published by the Federal Reserve every business day.

Why. This is the fastest honest read on whether an oil shock is turning into a money problem. Lenders reprice risk within hours, long before defaults, layoffs, or recession statistics appear. It matters doubly here because the high-yield market is full of ENERGY companies, so a sustained oil disruption tends to show up in this number first.

How to read. Higher means lenders are demanding more to take risk. Around 2.5 to 3 points is a calm market. Climbing through 5 means real stress is building; the 2016 oil crash peaked near 9, which is where this scale tops out. Watch the direction more than the level: a steady widening is the early warning, even while the broader stress index still looks quiet.

Data timing. Published each business day with about a one-day lag, so the newest reading is usually yesterday. It is one of the freshest signals on this page.

What. How far the S&P 500, the main index of large American companies, sits below its highest point of the past year, in percent.

Why. This is the most direct read on whether the market itself is turning down, and it is the part of a crisis people actually feel in a 401(k). Stock prices are one of the ten components of the Conference Board’s official Leading Economic Index, because markets tend to fall before the economy does.

How to read. Zero means the market is at a fresh high. Around 10% is an ordinary pullback that happens most years. A fall of 20% is the traditional definition of a bear market, and 30%, roughly the COVID crash, is where this scale tops out. Treat it with care: stocks produce more false alarms than the yield curve, which is why it carries the smallest weight in the Recession signals score.

Data timing. Closing prices, published each business day with about a one-day lag. Shown as a derived percentage rather than index levels.

What. The price of Brent crude, the benchmark that sets oil prices for most of the world outside the U.S.

Why. Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. If traders think that supply is at risk, Brent is where it shows up first.

How to read. We treat $70 a barrel as roughly normal and $150, the peak of the 2008 oil shock, as the extreme. The higher above normal, the more the market is pricing in real supply trouble.

Data timing. EIA publishes these daily prices in a once-a-week batch, so the newest point can be up to a week old just before a release. The market hasn’t stopped, the official numbers just arrive in batches.

What. The closing price of West Texas Intermediate, the main U.S. crude benchmark, on the New York exchange where it trades.

Why. This is the freshest oil price on the page. Every other price card here comes from a U.S. government survey that publishes once a week, so those numbers can be several days behind a market that moves every day. This one closes with the market.

How to read. Read it next to the Brent card above. Brent is the global benchmark and usually trades a few dollars higher, so a widening gap between the two is a Middle East story rather than a general oil story. If this card has moved a lot since the Brent card’s date, the official weekly numbers have not caught up yet.

Data timing. Updated every trading day, shortly after the market closes. Weekends and market holidays have no closing price, so the number simply holds until the next session. One note on the chart: the current reading and everything from April onward is the exchange settlement, while the January to March stretch is filled from the U.S. government’s own Cushing crude price. In calm markets those two are effectively the same number, within about 0.2%, because they price the same barrels at the same place; they only separate once a supply squeeze pulls the physical market away from the futures, which is why the fill stops at the end of March.

What. The price of Brent crude minus the price of WTI, the main U.S. benchmark. Brent reflects oil that moves by ship; WTI mostly reflects oil that moves by pipeline within the U.S.

Why. A Hormuz problem should hit waterborne oil harder than landlocked U.S. oil. Watching the gap between the two filters out ordinary oil-price noise and isolates the regional story.

How to read. What counts as “normal” shifts over time, the gap ran about $5 before the crisis, spiked past $20 when the strait closed, then collapsed toward zero as shippers rerouted. So the score compares today’s gap to its own recent normal: the further above that normal, the more the market thinks this is a Middle East problem specifically, not just “oil is expensive.” Near or below normal reads calm.

Data timing. Built from the same EIA weekly-batch prices as the Brent card, so it inherits the same up-to-a-week publishing lag.

What. A gauge of how big a move, up or down, traders expect in oil prices over the next month, read from the prices they’re paying for oil options. It’s the oil-market cousin of the stock market’s VIX “fear gauge.”

Why. Oil options are where professionals hedge against a supply shock. When this climbs, they’re paying up to protect against a big swing in oil, often before the spot price itself has moved much. It reads how frightened the oil market is, not just how expensive oil is.

How to read. Higher means more expected turbulence in oil prices. Around 30 is calm; the 40s signal nervousness and 55+ is crisis-grade oil fear. Because it measures expectations rather than the barrel itself, treat it as a signal that can move ahead of the price. Source: Cboe Global Markets’ Crude Oil Volatility Index (OVX), via FRED.

Data timing. This is one of the few prices on this page that arrives every single business day. Brent and the pump prices come from government surveys published in weekly batches, so during a fast-moving week this card can move while those still show last week’s number. That is why it now feeds the reality-versus-pricing comparison: it keeps the market side of that gap current between batches.

What. The wholesale (spot) price of regular gasoline on the U.S. Gulf Coast, what distributors pay before it reaches the pump. From the EIA via FRED, updated every trading day.

Why. Gasoline is the most visible price in most people’s lives. The wholesale price moves days to weeks before the pump does, so a climb here is an early warning that the number on the gas-station sign is about to rise, the consumer-facing half of the Gas & Diesel story.

How to read. Watch the direction more than the level: a sustained climb says pump prices are about to follow. It’s judged against its own recent normal, a clear rise reads elevated, a sharp one reads high.

Data timing. EIA publishes this series once a week (Mondays), so the newest point is up to a week old by design.

What. The wholesale (spot) price of diesel on the U.S. Gulf Coast, what distributors pay before it reaches the pump. From the EIA via FRED. It is one of the four inputs to the Recession signals score, carrying 15% of it.

Why. Diesel is the fuel of trucks, trains, ships and farms, so it reaches the price of nearly everything. That makes it the first link in a chain this page watches closely: fuel costs rise, goods get more expensive to move, inflation follows, and a central bank responding to inflation is what historically turns markets down. Wholesale moves days to weeks ahead of the retail pump prices in Market Transmission, so this is the leading edge of that chain rather than the arrival of it.

How to read. The score compares today’s price with its own normal over the past two years, not with a fixed dollar figure, because what counts as a normal price shifts over the years. Roughly 10% above normal starts to register, and a doubling reads as a full crisis, the scale of both the 2022 diesel squeeze and this war’s March peak. The card’s big number and chart stay in dollars per gallon, the readable unit.

Data timing. The EIA publishes these daily prices in weekly batches, so the newest point can be anywhere from two days to about a week old. Because the score is measured against a two-year normal rather than yesterday’s price, that delay barely moves it.

What. How much retail gasoline and diesel prices have moved above their recent normal range. Two sources feed it: the U.S. Energy Information Administration surveys pump prices weekly and sets the “normal” this is measured against, and AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report supplies today’s number.

Why. This is where an oil shock stops being an abstraction and starts being a number at the pump.

How to read. The higher above normal, the more the shock has passed through to consumers. This blends retail gasoline and diesel against their trailing ~year median, and it feeds the Market Transmission gauge, it’s one of the clearest signs a strait disruption is actually reaching people’s wallets.

Data timing. This updates every day. The government’s own fuel survey is published weekly, so we use it for the history and the “normal” baseline, and take the current day’s national averages from AAA, which publishes daily. When the two overlap they agree closely: on July 27, 2026 they were within half a cent on gasoline. If the daily figure is ever unavailable, the card falls back to the weekly survey rather than showing nothing.

What. A single measure of strain across global and U.S. financial markets, credit, funding, safe assets, equity valuations and volatility, built by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research from 33 market readings, updated every trading day.

Why. It’s an early-warning gauge for the plumbing of the economy. Stress here tends to build before trouble reaches jobs and everyday prices, and it catches problems in the credit market that an oil price alone would miss. It’s a daily, market-based read, not a lagging official statistic.

How to read. Higher means more strain in the financial system. The scale runs from the calmest conditions on record up to a COVID-scale crisis, so a reading in the teens or twenties is ordinary and anything climbing past 50 means genuine system-wide stress. Reading low while oil spikes is not a contradiction: it is the point of this page, and it means the shock has not reached the financial plumbing yet.

Data timing. The OFR publishes each business day with about a two-day lag, so the newest reading is typically two to three days old.

What. The inflation rate, how much consumer prices (the CPI) have risen over the past 12 months, with the still-unreported current month estimated daily by the Cleveland Fed, weeks before the official government report comes out. This is the same “inflation is X%” number you hear in the news.

Why. The official CPI lands with a long lag, and “inflation expectations” are only a forecast. This is the timeliest read on ACTUAL inflation, and because the Fed’s model leans on daily oil and gasoline prices, a Strait of Hormuz oil shock shows up here first, before the official figures confirm it.

How to read. Around 2% is the Federal Reserve’s target and reads normal; above 3% is elevated; 4%+ means the shock is genuinely feeding through to prices. The chart is a record of the estimate itself: every point is what the model said on that day, not a tidied-up version written later. So the line drifts as fresh fuel prices come in, and it can step on the day an official CPI report lands and settles a month the model was still estimating. That gap between the estimate and the print is the whole reason to watch this, it is the nowcast seeing prices turn before the report does. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Inflation Nowcasting, updated each business day.

What. The bond market’s own forecast of average inflation over the next five years, read directly from the gap between regular and inflation-protected Treasury yields. It carries 10% of the Recession signals score.

Why. Gas prices spiking is one thing, the dangerous version of an oil shock is when it convinces everyone that inflation itself is back. If that happens, the Federal Reserve has to keep rates high even as the economy weakens, and there’s no rescue coming for markets. That is the step that actually turns a fuel-price shock into a falling market, which is why it is scored rather than just shown.

How to read. Around 2–2.5% means expectations are “anchored”, markets see the price spike as temporary. Above ~2.5% is worth attention; a sustained move past 3% would mean the shock is changing what people believe about inflation itself. The scale tops out at 4%, well past the 3.6% peak of the 2022 inflation scare. The chart shows the full year, so you can see whether the war moved it at all.

Data timing. Published every business day with about a one-day lag, so this is among the freshest readings on the page. It is deliberately the smallest slice of Recession signals: outside an oil shock, rising inflation expectations can just mean a healthy economy, so it earns a small vote rather than a loud one.

What. Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, a measure of how much traders expect stock prices to swing around (“volatility”) over the next month.

Why. The VIX rises when investors expect a jolt, whether or not one has actually happened yet. It’s less about what’s true and more about how nervous people are.

How to read. Around 15 is a calm market; 50 is crisis-level fear, on par with COVID or 2008. The higher it goes, the more anxiety is priced into stocks. Source: Cboe Global Markets’ Volatility Index (VIX), via FRED.

What. The Sahm rule, a simple, well-tested signal that has marked the start of nearly every modern recession the moment unemployment starts rising fast (with one famous 2024 false alarm).

Why. Oil shocks and market panics are one thing. This is the check on whether the job market, the part that decides whether people keep their paychecks, is actually turning.

How to read. It runs from 0 up to 0.5, the historical trigger for “a recession has already started.” The closer to 0.5, the closer to, or already inside, a downturn. It updates monthly; the Layoffs card in this section is its faster weekly cousin.

Data timing. Built from the monthly jobs report, so a new point lands once a month.

What. How many people filed for unemployment benefits for the first time last week, the fastest broad read on layoffs, published every Thursday.

Why. This is the earliest wide-angle view of the job market: filings react within weeks, while the unemployment rate behind the Sahm rule updates monthly and turns more slowly. If an oil shock starts costing jobs, this line moves first.

How to read. The level matters less than the climb: the score compares the recent average to its lowest point over the past year. Hovering near that low is normal churn. A sustained climb well above it means layoffs are genuinely picking up, historically that has sometimes been a recession deepening, and sometimes a scare that passed. It’s a smoke detector, not a recession verdict.

Data timing. Released every Thursday covering the week before, so the newest reading can be up to ten days behind real time.

What. An index of the U.S. dollar’s value against the currencies of America’s major trading partners, published by the Federal Reserve. Updated every trading day.

Why. When global investors get scared, they run to the dollar, it’s the world’s safe haven. A sharp dollar spike during a crisis is a classic sign that stress has gone global, a channel the other cards here don’t directly capture.

How to read. The level drifts for many reasons (interest rates, trade), so watch for fast moves: a rise of a couple of percent above its recent normal reads elevated, and around four percent or more is crisis-grade flight to safety.

Data timing. The Federal Reserve publishes this index in a weekly batch, so daily values arrive a week at a time.

What. NASA satellites detect fires on the ground worldwide, several times a day. We watch the heat at 28 named oil and gas facilities across ten countries, chosen because damage to them would move world oil prices, from Abqaiq and Ras Tanura to Kharg Island, Iraq’s Basra refinery, Turkey’s Ceyhan terminal and Yemen’s Red Sea terminals, and compare each site against its own normal level, because refineries and gas plants burn off gas around the clock as part of routine operations.

Why. A strike on export infrastructure is the fastest way this war becomes a supply shock, and this is direct physical observation from orbit, hours behind reality, with no reporter or press release in the loop. The routine flaring also proves the instrument is live: a watched site that looks like itself is information, not absence of data.

How to read. Each row is one site, each cell one day, and the scale is set per site, so a small terminal counts as loudly as the biggest plant. Four levels: Normal (0%) means the site looks exactly like it always does, which is nearly every cell. Elevated means it is running hotter than its own usual range, which happens during startups, shutdowns and process upsets, and reached 66% on an ordinary day at Iraq’s Basra refinery. Incident (100% and above) means something is genuinely wrong at the plant, though heat alone cannot say whether that is an accident or an attack. Attack (300% and above) matches a confirmed strike: the drone attack on Abqaiq on July 27, 2026 reads about 1,780% on this scale, against a calm week where nothing anywhere reached 100%.

Data timing. Detections arrive roughly 4 hours behind each satellite pass, and today's column firms up through the day as more passes land. The grid starts July 26, 2026 and deepens daily. A hollow cell means that site's own normal is still being learned, which we report honestly instead of showing it as calm.

What. How fast the extra interest charged to riskier companies (the credit spread shown above) has moved over the past month.

Why. The LEVEL of credit spreads is usually calm right up to the edge of trouble; the SPEED of widening is what marks stress actually arriving. Every major market fall of the past twenty years shows up in this number as it happens, and it stays quiet the rest of the time.

How to read. Near zero, spreads stable or tightening, is normal. A rise of a full percentage point inside a month is crisis-speed widening. This is a siren, not a forecast: it fires days into trouble, not months before it. Source: ICE BofA high-yield index, via FRED.

What. The “excess bond premium”: corporate borrowing costs with expected defaults stripped out, leaving pure investor risk appetite. Published monthly by Federal Reserve economists, with history back to 1973.

Why. This is the most academically validated credit signal there is, the part of credit pricing that reflects fear rather than arithmetic. When it rises, lenders are pulling back beyond what default math justifies, and that retreat has accompanied every modern recession and market crisis.

How to read. Below zero means risk appetite is healthy or rich. Above one, lenders are genuinely frightened; two is crisis-grade. It updates monthly with a lag, so read it as the slow, deep confirmation beside the faster daily signals on this row.

What. The gap between the turbulence options traders are pricing (the VIX) and the turbulence the market has actually delivered over the past month.

Why. Options normally price MORE turbulence than arrives, that surplus is the premium sellers earn, like insurers in a quiet year. When actual turbulence overwhelms what was priced, a shock is in progress and risk models everywhere are being caught out at once.

How to read. Positive, roughly three to five points, is the normal state. Negative means realized turbulence has overrun what options priced, the signature of a crash in progress. A deeply negative number is a description of a storm underway, never an advance warning of one.

What. What large companies pay to borrow cash for three months (commercial paper) minus what the U.S. government pays. The day-to-day price of trust in the corporate cash market.

Why. This was the first alarm of the 2008 era: it cracked in August 2007, two months before the stock market’s peak, when money funds stopped trusting bank paper. Funding is where stress shows first because it is where trust is priced hourly.

How to read. Around a fifth of a point is ordinary friction. Above one and a half points, companies are paying crisis-grade premiums for short cash. Some days show no reading, on thin days no rate is published, so an occasional gap in the chart is the source’s rhythm, not an outage.

What. The 2-year Treasury yield minus the Fed’s current rate. When the 2-year crashes far below the Fed’s rate, bond markets are pricing emergency rate cuts.

Why. The bond market moves first when it smells real trouble: it stops arguing with the Fed and starts pricing rescue. That signature, the 2-year far below the policy rate, marked late 2007, 2019, and March 2020. It is different from the yield curve card above: that one leads recessions by a year; this one moves in days.

How to read. Near zero means the market agrees with the Fed’s stance. Below about minus one point, the market is demanding emergency easing, which has only happened around genuine stress. A siren read: it confirms trouble arriving now rather than predicting it.

What. The Federal Reserve’s interest rate minus the current inflation rate: how tight money actually is once inflation is subtracted. Built from the Fed’s own daily rate and the Cleveland Fed inflation nowcast shown above.

Why. This is the “can the Fed rescue markets?” question in one number. When the real rate is high, policy is restrictive and there is room to cut; when it is high because the Fed is fighting inflation, cutting means surrendering to it. A restrictive stance preceded the 2008 crisis by over a year.

How to read. Around zero to half a point reads normal. Above two points is 2006-07-grade restriction, fragile ground. This is a conditions signal: it says how exposed markets are if trouble comes, never when. Source: Federal Reserve (rates), Cleveland Fed (inflation).

What. How fast borrowed money in stock accounts is growing: the year-over-year change in margin debt, reported monthly by FINRA, the brokerage regulator.

Why. Borrowed money amplifies any fall, because falling prices force borrowers to sell, which pushes prices down further. Growth near +40% a year marked 2007 and 2021, each ahead of a major market fall. It says nothing about timing, leverage can build for years, but it decides how hard a shock lands.

How to read. Near zero is normal. Past +40% is blow-off-grade borrowing. The number arrives about a month behind, FINRA publishes a few weeks after each month ends. This is the fragility read, not a siren: high values mean dry brush, not fire.