Over the weekend, I came across an article referencing Polymarket — the real-time prediction and online betting platform where people place odds on a wide range of real-world outcomes. One question that caught my eye: How long will the Strait of Hormuz remain closed?
When the conflict with Iran first escalated, Polymarket showed roughly a 90% probability that the Strait of Hormuz would be fully open by June 30. The assumption, apparently, was that things would settle down quickly and return to normal within a couple of months.
In retrospect, that was delusional. But the real question isn’t whether the prediction was wrong — it’s why so many people made that assumption in the first place.
Fast forward to today, and that same probability has dropped to somewhere below 40% — and at the time I checked over the weekend, it was hovering around 50%. The market was repricing dramatically as facts caught up to reality.
Deglobalization: The Secular Trend Hiding in Plain Sight
Here’s where the framework comes in. For the last ten to twelve years — and at an accelerating pace — the world has been deglobalizing. That single insight, if you hold it clearly, completely changes how you interpret the news you see every day.
Think about the list of events that have unfolded over that time: COVID-19 as a global supply chain shock. The Russia-Ukraine conflict and its ripple effects on energy and commodities. The Trump-era tariffs and escalating trade tensions. China’s rare earth export restrictions. And now the ongoing conflict with Iran and the resulting uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical energy shipping lanes.
Each of these events, viewed in isolation, looks like a one-off disruption. But viewed through a deglobalization framework, they form a clear and consistent pattern: the world is moving in the opposite direction from where it spent the last several decades.
If you had that framework in place when the Iran conflict started, you wouldn’t have assumed a quick return to normal. You would have said — here’s another data point confirming the trend. And these trends typically get bigger, not smaller.
Simple to Understand. Not Easy to Execute.
This is what I mean when I talk about the value of a framework. It’s not about predicting the future with certainty — no one can do that. It’s about filtering the information that’s constantly coming at you through the right lens, so that when a new event occurs, you can ask: Does this validate the trend I’m already tracking, or does it contradict it?
In my experience as an investor, the people who consistently outperform aren’t necessarily the ones with the most data. They’re the ones who identified the direction of a major secular shift early — and had the discipline to believe what they were seeing.
Right now, we’re in the middle of what I believe is a significant leadership transition in markets — away from the tech-driven globalization trade that dominated the last cycle, and toward opportunities that are better suited to a deglobalizing world. The two are almost opposite in character.
That doesn’t mean the path is simple or that it’s free of volatility. It absolutely isn’t. But I do think it means there’s real opportunity for those who are willing to embrace the direction of change rather than bet against it.
Filter What You’re Seeing Through the Right Framework
The same information is available to everyone. The edge comes from how you process it. If your framework tells you the world is returning to the way it was, you’ll read every headline as a temporary disruption and wait for normalization. If your framework tells you the world is structurally changing, you’ll read each new development and see it for what I believe it is: more evidence that the world is changing — and act accordingly.
It’s a simple idea. It is genuinely not easy to execute. But in my opinion, it’s one of the most valuable things you can bring to your investment process right now.
