Iran’s Strait of Hormuz toll plan could reshape global energy markets
Key Takeaways
- •Iran could collect close to $20 billion a year from shipping tolls on the Strait of Hormuz if charges were set at 5% to 7% of each oil cargo.
- •CoreWeave said revenue more than doubled, and its founders have sold about $2.9 billion of stock through 10b5-1 plans since the company’s March 2025 IPO.
- •Economists expect today’s U.S. CPI reading to come in near 2.5%, which could support the Federal Reserve keeping rates unchanged in September.
- •U.S. existing-home sales fell to 4.06 million in July, keeping the housing market in a depressed range that has lasted for roughly three years.
- •Wood Mackenzie said Chinese companies control 90% of the global humanoid robot population, reflecting Beijing’s push to make advanced robotics a strategic priority.
Good morning. On Fortune’s radar today:
Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz—how bad can it be? We have answers.
Markets: Mini rally.
$3 billion in C-suite insider sales at CoreWeave.
Incoming: CPI inflation.
Why U.S. housing is stuck in a rut.
China owns 90% of all humanoid robots.
Italy’s $4.7 billion “cheese banks” hold wheels of Parmigiano as collateral.
➡️ Did someone forward you this email? If you would like to receive this information directly, every morning before the markets open in New York, sign up here.
ONE BIG THING
The irony of Iran’s plan for tolls on the Hormuz: They might be cheaper than you'd think
If Iran were to impose shipping tolls on the Strait of Hormuz at around 5% to 7% of each oil cargo, it could generate close to $20 billion a year for the regime in Tehran, Fortune’s Jordan Blum estimates. The waterway carries roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, making any toll regime a direct cost driver for economies across Asia and Europe that depend on Gulf crude. But geopolitical and energy analysts say such steep tolls would not be accepted by the U.S. or by Iran’s Gulf neighbors.
That means the stalemate could drag on indefinitely, or Iran could eventually accept a smaller, though still substantial, financial payout. Either way, the Middle East and, by extension, global energy markets would be permanently altered.
The irony is that if Iran sets the price too high, Gulf countries would be forced to reroute exports over land, making the Strait less relevant. Iranian officials likely understand that any fee would need to stay low enough to remain economically workable.
“The strait is never going to go back to its pre-war status quo,” said Gregory Brew, senior analyst for Iran and energy with the Eurasia Group. “There’s going to be a permanently recognized Iranian role in managing the waterway.”
“An unattractive deal with Iran is the best of limited bad options,” he said.
Houthi attack kills six in first fatalities in Red Sea in over a year; U.S. strikes container ship - CNBC
THE MARKETS
Global stocks stage mini rally on buoyant AI earnings
U.S. tech stocks largely fell yesterday, with the Nasdaq Composite losing 0.6%. But AI cloud provider CoreWeave delivered blockbuster second-quarter results, and markets in Asia and Europe opened higher this morning.
S&P 500 futures were up 0.22% this morning. The index was down 0.32% yesterday.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was flat in early trading, as was the U.K.’s FTSE 100.
In Asia, South Korea’s KOSPI was up 3.68%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.83%, India’s Nifty 50 fell 0.55%, and China’s CSI 300 gained 0.58%.
Brent crude was at $88 per barrel this morning.
Bitcoin was at $63.8K.
At CoreWeave, $3 billion in insider sales since the IPO
CoreWeave, the AI cloud computing company, disclosed in its second-quarter earnings release last night that it more than doubled revenue. But its filings with the SEC also included a striking detail, as noted by Brent Thill and colleagues at Jefferies: “Since CRWV's IPO [March 2025], the firm's co-founders have sold ~$2.9B of CRWV stock through 10b5-1 trading plans.” The sales come as the company reported a contracted backlog of $104 billion, reflecting the intense demand from enterprises racing to secure GPU capacity for training and deploying large language models.
A Rule 10b5-1 plan allows insiders to schedule sales in advance, while they are not in possession of material nonpublic information, so later sales cannot be second-guessed as insider trading.
Investors did not appear to mind. The stock rose 2.42% before the close yesterday and then gained another 17.4% in premarket trading.
Incoming: CPI inflation expected to be soft, keeping the Fed on hold
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the latest consumer price index reading today. Economists expect a “soft” result around 2.5%, which could encourage the Federal Reserve to leave interest rates unchanged again in September. Inflation has cooled significantly from its peak above 9% in mid-2022, but has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2% target for over two years.
“Today's U.S. July consumer price inflation data will be less precise than in the past. There are more gaps in the data, and those gaps are filled by (educated) guesswork,” UBS’s Paul Donovan told clients this morning. “The reaction to a single weaker employment report shows the potency of any data release at the moment.”
“Absent the war, that figure would likely be at or near 2% (core inflation has embedded energy in freight costs, air fares, etc.). One year on, tariff effects should add less to the inflation rate,” he said.
European stocks are doing surprisingly well
One of the “myths” about European companies is that they underperform on profits and are especially exposed to oil supply shocks from the Gulf, according to Sharon Bell and her team at Goldman Sachs. But that is not the case this year, she said in a note.
“The prevailing narrative that Europe is struggling to generate earnings growth is increasingly at odds with the data. First-half EPS growth is tracking at +14% y/y, the strongest pace in three years, and notably comes despite a renewed energy supply shock, which has historically been viewed as a headwind for European earnings.”
The Stoxx 600 is up 11% year to date, compared with the S&P 500’s 13% gain.
MORE FROM FORTUNE
Forget the gala, these Silicon Valley schools run their own venture capital funds - Amanda Gerut
CHART OF THE DAY
The U.S. housing market is stuck in a rut
Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell to 4.06 million in July, down from 4.13 million in June. That is not encouraging, according to Pantheon Macroeconomics’ Oliver Allen.
“The further dip in sales leaves them in the middle of the depressed range they have been stuck in for around three years now, and around a quarter below their average level in the five years leading up to the pandemic,” he said in a note.
“Looking further ahead, a significant housing market recovery is unlikely, as long as monetary policy remains relatively tight, the labor market subdued, confidence depressed, and population growth constrained by tighter immigration policies.”
NUMBER OF THE DAY: Humanoid robots
90%
That is the share of the global “humanoid” robot population controlled by Chinese companies, according to research from the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. The finding aligns with Beijing’s multi-year industrial strategy, including programs under the “Made in China 2025” framework, which has designated advanced robotics as a strategic priority for reducing labor costs and addressing demographic decline.
For example, State Grid Corporation of China, a utility company, “has committed US$1 billion in 2026 to procure 8,500 AI-enabled autonomous robots across more than 600 specialized tasks, signalling that robotics has become critical national infrastructure,” Wood Mackenzie said in a statement.
THE FRONT PAGES TODAY
JD Vance asked Ukraine to halt strikes on tankers using Russian port - FT
World’s largest sovereign wealth fund posts record $184 billion profit as it reveals SpaceX stake for the first time - CNBC
Tech companies propose tracking rogue AI agents - Axios
Why Wall Street and Nvidia are building an exotic money pipeline for the AI Boom - WSJ
Bessent-Takaichi divide on optimal BOJ path threatens yen rescue - Bloomberg
Paramount has spent 100 years in Hollywood. David Ellison loved that. Until he didn’t - Hollywood Reporter
Kroger to close 60 ‘underperforming’ stores - NY Post
ONE MORE THING
Climate change threatens Italy’s $4.7 billion ‘cheese banks’ that hold wheels of Parmigiano as collateral
In the hills of Emilia-Romagna, a bank vault stores more than half a million wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, worth well over 300 million euros. The vault belongs to Credito Emiliano, which has accepted young wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano as collateral for loans to dairy farms since 1953.
Now extreme heat is threatening Italy’s “cheese banks,” Fortune’s Cat Gioino reports.
This year’s record heat waves in Europe have pushed energy consumption up by about 30%, forcing the bank to upgrade cooling systems and boilers, add insulation, and expand renewable power generation.
Because temperatures are so high, cows lie down more and eat less, reducing milk production by up to 10% a year. Longer and more intense heat events also affect the quantity and quality of milk, ultimately raising costs that may not appear in the supply chain for months.
Would you like to sponsor this newsletter? Contact Polly Raven (polly.raven@fortune.com) for details.
