A Crew Member’s Perspective

I have a college classmate who runs long-distance cargo ships. He just docked yesterday to rest and repair, and we chatted for a while over messages. His perspective is especially interesting.

He said that over the past two days, their company has sent three emails—each one more urgent than the last. The route planning department has already notified them that for voyages near the Strait of Hormuz, the insurance deductible has doubled, and some shipowners are even suggesting detours. What does taking a detour mean? It means traveling several extra days, adding fuel costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars, causing delivery delays, and resulting in contract breach. In the end, who pays for all these costs? “The wool comes from the sheep”—every link in the global supply chain has to raise prices.

He also told me a detail. Now, when they pass through the strait, they can receive radio calls from nearby warships at any time—far more frequent than usual. Sometimes they can even see speedboats keeping close at a distance. They may know it’s likely patrol, but he said that feeling is hard to put into words—it’s oppressive, like something could go wrong at any moment.

I asked him whether he’s afraid on the ship. He said he’s used to it; it’s not his first time sailing through high-risk areas. But this time, he really feels more tense than before. In the past, even though the two sides were also confronting each other, you could feel that there was a line everyone wouldn’t cross. Now it’s as if that line has become blurred, and no one knows what the other side will do next.

After I hung up, I kept thinking: people like us who watch charts and trade cryptocurrencies spend all day staring at candlestick charts, treating geopolitical conflict as a trading opportunity. But behind all that are countless people’s real lives and real risks. My classmate stays at sea to earn a paycheck. We stay on the market to earn a bit of money. In essence, we’re both people being pushed along by the larger environment.

Back to the market. After hearing this, I’m even more convinced of one view: the situation around the strait is more tense than what public reports show, but the market may not have fully priced it in yet. It’s not that it’s definitely going to lead to fighting—it’s that even if the standoff simply maintains the current level of intensity, energy and shipping costs will be systematically pushed up. This impact isn’t just for a day or two; it could be measured month by month.

So this opportunity isn’t a short-term trading logic—it’s a trend logic. If you have relevant positions, don’t rush to get out. If you don’t, don’t chase after the highs—wait for the pullback and build gradually. After all, reality is far more complicated than the news. May the world be at peace. And I also wish that my brothers can all make money from this wave.
#美伊談判陷入僵局