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The 8 April ceasefire announcement and parallel discussions around a 45-day truce have not resolved the Strait of Hormuz disruption. They have, for now, capped the worst-case scenario, but tanker traffic remains at a fraction of normal levels and Iran's demand for transit fees signals a structural shift, not a temporary one.
What began as a regional conflict has become a global energy shock, and the question for markets is no longer whether Hormuz was disrupted, but how permanently the disruption changes the pricing floor for oil.
Key takeaways
- Around 20 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and petroleum products normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman, equal to about one-fifth of global oil consumption and roughly 30% of global seaborne oil trade.
- This is a flow shock, not an inventory problem. Oil markets depend on continuous throughput, not static storage.
- If the disruption persists beyond a few weeks, Brent could shift from a short-term spike to a broader price shock, with stagflation risk.
- Tanker traffic through the strait fell from around 135 ships per day to fewer than 15 at the peak of disruption, a reduction of approximately 85%, with more than 150 vessels anchored, diverted, or delayed.
- A two-week ceasefire was announced on 8 April, with 45-day truce negotiations under way. Iran has separately signalled a demand for transit fees on vessels using the strait, which, if formalised, would represent a permanent geopolitical floor on energy costs.
- Markets have begun rotating away from growth and technology exposure toward energy and defence names, reflecting a view that elevated oil is becoming a structural cost rather than a temporary risk premium.
The world’s most critical oil chokepoint
The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly 20 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum products, equal to about 20% of global oil consumption and around 30% of global seaborne oil trade. With global oil demand near 104 million bpd and spare capacity limited, the market was already tightly balanced before the latest escalation.
The strait is also a critical corridor for liquefied natural gas. Around 290 million cubic metres of LNG transited the route each day on average in 2024, representing roughly 20% of global LNG trade, with Asian markets the main destination.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has described Hormuz as the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint, noting that even partial interruptions may trigger outsized price moves. Brent crude has moved above US$100 a barrel, reflecting both physical tightness and a rising geopolitical risk premium.
Tankers idle as flows slow
Shipping and insurance data now point to strain in real time. More than 85 large crude carriers are reported to be stranded in the Persian Gulf, while more than 150 vessels have been anchored, diverted or delayed as operators reassess safety and insurance cover. That would leave an estimated 120 million to 150 million barrels of crude sitting idle at sea.
Those volumes represent only six to seven days of normal Hormuz throughput, or a little more than one day of global oil consumption.
Updated shipping and insurance data now confirm more than 150 vessels have been anchored, diverted, or delayed, up from the 85 initially reported. The 1.3 days of global consumption coverage from idle crude remains the binding constraint: this is a flow shock, not a storage problem, and the ceasefire has not yet translated into meaningfully restored throughput.
A market built on flow, not storage
Oil markets function on continuous movement. Refineries, petrochemical plants and global supply chains are calibrated to steady deliveries along predictable sea lanes. When flows through a chokepoint that carries roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption and around 30% of global seaborne oil trade are interrupted, the system can move from equilibrium to deficit within days.
Spare production capacity, largely concentrated within OPEC, is estimated at only 3 million to 5 million bpd. That falls well short of the volumes at risk if Hormuz flows are severely disrupted.
Oil market analysis
How long do idle tankers last?
135M idle barrels — days of cover against each demand benchmark
vs. Strait of Hormuz daily flow (20M bbl/day)
vs. Global oil consumption (104M bbl/day)
vs. US Strategic Petroleum Reserve release (1M bbl/day)
135M
idle barrels on tankers (midpoint of 120–150M range)
~33%
of daily Hormuz flow that is idle storage, not transit
<31 hrs
is all idle storage against global daily consumption
Inflation risks and macro spillovers
The inflationary impact of an oil shock typically arrives in waves. Higher fuel and energy prices may lift headline inflation quickly as petrol, diesel and power costs move higher.
Over time, higher energy costs may pass through freight, food, manufacturing and services. If the disruption persists, the combination of elevated inflation and slower growth could raise the risk of a stagflationary environment and leave central banks facing a difficult trade-off.
No easy offset, a system with little slack
What makes the current episode particularly acute is the lack of slack in the global system.
Global supply and demand near 103 million to 104 million bpd leave little spare cushion when a chokepoint handling nearly 20 million bpd, or about one-fifth of global oil consumption, is compromised. Estimated spare capacity of 3 million to 5 million bpd, mostly within OPEC, would cover only a fraction of the volumes at risk.
Alternative routes, including pipelines that bypass Hormuz and rerouted shipping, can only partly offset lost flows, and usually at higher cost and with longer lead times.
Bottom line
Until transit through the Strait of Hormuz is restored and seen as credibly secure, global oil flows are likely to remain impaired and risk premia elevated. For investors, policymakers and corporate decision-makers, the core question is whether oil can move where it needs to go, every day, without interruption.
Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) announced the latest financial results on Wednesday. The US ride-hailing company beat both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) estimates for the last 3 months of 2023. Revenue reached $9.936 billion for the quarter (up from $8.607 billion in Q4 2022) vs. $9.756 billion expected.
EPS was reported at $0.66 per share (up by 127.58% year-over-year) vs. $0.163 per share estimate. Full year revenue grew by 24% from 2022 to $137.865 billion. Company overview Founded: March 2009 Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States Number of employees: 32,800 (2022) Industry: Transportation Key people: Ronald Sugar (Chairman), Dara Khosrowshahi (CEO) CEO commentary "2023 was an inflection point for Uber, proving that we can continue to generate strong, profitable growth at scale.
Our audiences are larger and more engaged than ever, with our platform powering an average of nearly 26 million daily trips last year," Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber said in a press release. Stock reaction Shares initially dropped by around 3% at the open on Wednesday. Shares flat towards the end of the trading day, up by 0.20% at $70.61 a share.
Stock performance 5 day: +8.14% 1 month: +13.10% 3 months: +42.60% Year-to-date: +14.64% 1 year: +91.65% Uber stock price targets Needham & Company LLC: $71 KeyCorp: $79 JMP Securities: $75 Bank of America: $73 Truist Financial: $68 Gordon Haskett: $66 Mizuho: $77 The Goldman Sachs Group: $78 BMO Capital Markets: $69 Nomura: $62 Oppenheimer: $75 Tigress Financial: $72 Wells Fargo & Company: $64 JP Morgan Chase & Co.: $62 Morgan Stanley: $62 Uber Technologies Inc. is the 89th largest company in the world with a market cap of $145.20 billion, according to CompaniesMarketCap. You can trade Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) and many other stocks from the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX and ASX with GO Markets as a Share CFD on the MetaTrader 5 platform. To find out more, go to "Trading" then select "Share CFDs".
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US tobacco and cigarette company Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM) released the latest financial results for Q4 and 2023 full year before opening bell in the US on Thursday. The company reported revenue of $9 billion for the quarter, which was just shy of $9.008 billion expected. Earnings per share (EPS) fell short of analyst estimates at $1.36 vs. $1.449 per share expected.
Full year revenue and EPS reached $35.2 billion and $5.02 per share respectively. Company overview Founded: 1874 Headquarters: Stamford, Connecticut, United States Number of employees: 79,800 (2022) Industry: Tobacco Key people: André Calantzopoulos (Executive Chairman), Jacek Olczak (CEO) CEO commentary "Our business delivered a strong finish to 2023 and we achieved a number of remarkable milestones on our path to becoming a smoke-free company," Jacek Olczak, CEO of Philip Morris said after earnings. "We are entering 2024 with strong momentum, and we expect it will be another year of excellent performance underpinned by an acceleration in organic smoke-free net revenue and profit growth," Olczak added. Stock reaction Shares were down by 2.68% at the end of Thursday’s session at $88.99 a share – the lowest since October 2023.
Stock performance 5 day: -4.57% 1 month: -6.43% 3 months: -0.86% Year-to-date: -5.37% 1 year: -12.73% Philip Morris stock price targets UBS Group: $86.50 JP Morgan Chase & Co.: $115 Redburn Atlantic: $95 Jefferies Financial Group: $105 Stifel Nicolaus: $114 Morgan Stanley: $113 Bank of America: $111 Barclays: $110 Citigroup: $117 Philip Morris International Inc. is the 94th largest company in the world with a market cap of $138.19 billion, according to CompaniesMarketCap. You can trade Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM) and many other stocks from the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX and ASX with GO Markets as a Share CFD on the MetaTrader 5 platform. To find out more, go to "Trading" then select "Share CFDs".
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On Friday, US beverage and food company PepsiCo Inc. (NASDAQ: PEP) announced the latest financial results before the market opened. The New York based company reported revenue of $27.85 billion for Q4 2023, falling short of Wall Street analyst estimate of $28.4 billion. Revenue was down from $27.996 billion from the same period in 2022.
Earnings per share (EPS) reached $1.78 (up by 6.5% year-over-year) vs. $1.722 per share expected. PepsiCo achieved full year revenue of $91.471 billion. Full year EPS reached $7.62 per share.
The company also announced a quarterly dividend of $1.265 per share. Company overview Founded: 1898 Headquarters: Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens, Harrison, New York, U.S.
Number of employees: 315,000 (2022) Industry: Beverages, Food processing Key people: Ramon Laguarta (Chairman & CEO), Hugh Johnston (Vice Chairman & CFO) CEO commentary "We are pleased with our results for 2023 as we successfully navigated another year of elevated levels of inflation, macroeconomic volatility, geopolitical tensions and international conflicts. Our results demonstrate that the investments we have made to strengthen our business and advance our pep+ agenda are working: it’s evident in how we are innovating, operating, empowering our teams, building our brands, and competing in the marketplace," CEO of PepsiCo, Ramon Laguarta said in a statement to investors. Stock reaction The stock was down by 2.80% during Friday's session, trading at $168.99 a share.
Stock performance 5 day: -1.37% 1 month: +0.81% 3 months: +1.02% Year-to-date: -0.71% 1 year: -4.30% PepsiCo stock price targets Wedbush: $195 Barclays: $179 JP Morgan Chase & Co.: $176 Jefferies Financial Group: $203 DZ Bank: $187 Wells Fargo & Company: $172 Morgan Stanley: $190 Argus: $186 Royal Bank of Canada: $180 Citigroup: $180 Evercore ISI: $185 Deutsche Bank: $195 UBS Group: $205 Credit Suisse Group: $182 PepsiCo Inc. is the 47th largest company in the world with a market cap of $231.86 billion, according to CompaniesMarketCap. You can trade PepsiCo Inc. (NASDAQ: PEP) and many other stocks from the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX and ASX with GO Markets as a Share CFD on the MetaTrader 5 platform. To find out more, go to "Trading" then select "Share CFDs".
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The largest steel producer company in the United States, Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE), announced the latest financial results after the market closed in Wall Street on Monday. The company achieved revenue of $7.705 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, above analyst estimate of $7.635 billion. Earnings per share was reported at $3.16, also higher than $2.921 per share expected.
Company overview Founded: 1905 Headquarters: Charlotte, North Carolina, United States Number of employees: 31,000 (2022) Industry: Steel Key people: Leon J. Topalian (President, & CEO), John H. Walker (Executive Chairman), James D.
Frias (CFO) CEO commentary "The Nucor team delivered a strong finish to 2023, which represents the third-most profitable year in our Company's history. Nucor's strategy to grow our core steelmaking capabilities and expand beyond into steel-adjacent business lines continues to deliver strong results," Leon J. Topalian, CEO of the steel company said in a press release to investors. "Over the past four years, Nucor has generated an average annual ROE of 33% and has returned approximately $9.7 billion to its shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
We remain optimistic that Nucor's best days are ahead of us, with a resilient U.S. economy and steel-intensive megatrends driving increased demand for our products. With our strong balance sheet and broad array of sustainable steel solutions, we believe Nucor is unparalleled with respect to its ability to leverage these market drivers for continued growth," Topalian added. Stock reaction The stock was up by 0.88% at market close on Monday, trading at $176.64 a share – the highest since 27/12/2023.
Shares rose by around 1% in the after-hours trading as the latest results were announced. Stock performance 5 day: +3.12% 1 month: +0.98% 3 months: +17.99% Year-to-date: +0.98% 1 year: +5.64% Nucor stock price targets UBS Group: $210 JP Morgan & Chase: $158 Morgan Stanley: $154 Citigroup: $180 Credit Suisse Group: $167 BNP Paribas: $191 The Goldman Sachs Group: $161 Nucor Corporation is the 427th largest company in the world with a market cap of $43.14 billion, according to CompaniesMarketCap. You can trade Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) and many other stocks from the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX and ASX with GO Markets as a Share CFD on the MetaTrader 5 platform.
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Chinese electric vehicle company, NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO), hasn’t had the best start to 2024 with the stock plummeting by 37.05% year-to-date. That’s despite the company signing battery-swap agreements with other Chinese automakers, including, Changan Automobile, Geely Group, JAC Group and Chery Automobile. Back in the December, NIO also announced a $2.2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi.
You can read more about it here. On Thursday, the company released the latest delivery numbers for January, which had a rare positive effect on the share price. NIO delivered 10,055 cars last month, which was up by 18.2% from January 2023.
The company has delivered 459,649 vehicles in total as of 31/1/2024. The EV maker is expected to announce the latest financial results for the fourth quarter on around 21/3/2024. Company overview Founded: November 2014 Headquarters: Shanghai, China Number of employees: 20,000+ (2023) Industry: Automotive Key people: William Li (CEO), Lihong Qin (President), Wei Feng (CFO) Stock reaction The stock was up by 1.60% at the end of trading day on Thursday at $5.71 a share and is currently trading at the lowest level since June 2020.
Stock performance 5 day: -5.46% 1 month: -30.96% 3 months: -26.70% Year-to-date: -37.05% 1 year: -52.26% NIO stock price targets Mizuho: $15 Deutsche Bank: $16 CLSA: $14 Sanford C. Bernstein: $8 JP Morgan Chase & Co.: $10.50 Citigroup: $19.20 UBS Group: $15 Nomura: $7.50 Barclays: $8 Morgan Stanley: $12 NIO Inc. is the 1367th largest and 5th largest electric vehicle company in the world with a market cap of $11.91 billion. You can trade NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO) and many other stocks from the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX and ASX with GO Markets as a Share CFD.
GO Markets now offers pre-market and after-market trading on popular US Share CFDs. Trade the pre-market session: 4:00am to 9:30am, normal session, and after-market session: 4:00pm to 8:00pm, Eastern Standard Time. Why trade during extended hours?
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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) recently overtook Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) as the largest company in the world, reaching $3.036 trillion market cap. On Tuesday, the company announced its latest financial results. Let’s see how the company performed.
The US tech giant reported revenue that exceeded Wall Street expectations at $62.02 billion for FY24 Q2 (up by 18% year-over-year) vs. $61.141 billion estimate. Earnings per share (EPS) reached $2.93 vs. $2.771 per share expected. EPS was up by 33% vs. the same period the year before.
Company overview Founded: 1975 Headquarters: Redmond, Washington Number of employees: 221,000 Industry: Technology Key people: Satya Nadella (CEO), Amy Hood (CFO) CEO and CFO commentary "We’ve moved from talking about AI to applying AI at scale. By infusing AI across every layer of our tech stack, we’re winning new customers and helping drive new benefits and productivity gains across every sector," Satya Nadella, CEO of the company highlighted what’s driving the business in a press release. Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft, also chipped in to emphasize what helped the company achieve the high level results in the previous quarter: "Strong execution by our sales teams and partners drove Microsoft Cloud revenue to $33.7 billion, up 24% (up 22% in constant currency) year-over-year." Stock reaction Shares were flat at market close on Tuesday, trading at $408.49 a share.
There wasn’t much movement in the stock in the after-hours following the latest resulst were announced. One to watch at the open on Wednesday. Stock performance 5 day: +2.43% 1 month: +10.17% 3 months: +20.85% Year-to-date: +8.66% 1 year: +64.88% Microsoft stock price targets Wedbush: $450 Piper Sandler: $455 BNP Paribas: $471 BMO Capital Markets: $420 Mizuho: $450 Argus: $430 Tigress Financial: $475 Royal Bank of Canada: $390 Evercore ISI: $432 Barclays: $425 HSBC: $413 Citigroup: $432 You can trade Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and many other stocks from the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX and ASX with GO Markets as a Share CFD on the MetaTrader 5 platform.
To find out more, go to "Trading" then select "Share CFDs". GO Markets offers pre-market and after-market trading on popular US Share CFDs. Why trade during extended hours?
Volatility never sleeps. Trade over earnings releases as they happen outside of main trading hours Reduce your risk and hedge your existing positions ahead of a new trading day Extended trading hours on popular US stocks means extended opportunities Sources: Microsoft Corporation, TradingView, MarketWatch, MarketBeat, CompaniesMarketCap