Hey Influence Traders,

The president says we're wrapping up in Iran. Meanwhile, the 82nd Airborne just landed in the Middle East.

Those two things don't go together. If you're watching what I'm watching, the contradiction tells you everything about where this is headed and where the money moves next.

On Tuesday, Trump told reporters the U.S. could be done in Iran within two to three weeks. He said we'd be "leaving very soon" and gas prices would "come tumbling down."

Here's the version I'm tracking. Thousands of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne and Marines aboard the USS Tripoli are now in theater. The Pentagon is reportedly planning limited ground operations, including potential raids on Kharg Island, where 90 percent of Iran's crude exports are processed.

These aren't the moves you make when you're packing up. These are the moves you make before you kick in the door.

138 ships a day became single digits

Forget the back-and-forth about negotiations. The Strait of Hormuz is closed for all practical purposes. Before the war, about 138 vessels transited every day. Between March 1 and 25, Lloyd's List counted 142 total transits. In the same window last year, there were 2,652.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard set up a tollbooth. Ships submit documentation, get a clearance code over VHF radio, and then get escorted through Iranian waters around Larak Island. Chinese vessels have been denied passage. This isn't free navigation. This is Iran deciding who moves oil and who doesn't.

And it's not just tankers in the crosshairs. On Monday night, an Iranian drone struck the Al-Salmi, a fully loaded Kuwaiti crude carrier anchored off Dubai carrying roughly two million barrels of Saudi and Kuwaiti oil. The fire was contained. The message was clear. Nothing anchored in the Gulf is safe.

Liquefied natural gas is in worse shape than crude. The Strait disruption is only half the problem. Iran-linked attacks knocked out roughly 17 percent of Qatar's LNG export capacity, and QatarEnergy declared force majeure on LNG shipments. Even if the passage reopened tomorrow, the export infrastructure itself is damaged. That's not a days-long fix. That's months.

Container shipping is near standstill. Maersk suspended bookings to Gulf ports. The IMO is warning it will take weeks to months before anything resembles normal, even after a ceasefire.

Every deadline extension, every new troop deployment, every drone strike on a tanker tells you the same thing. This disruption is not ending quickly. Energy names remain in play. Defense contractors positioned around Gulf operations and counter-drone systems are exactly where government money flows in a conflict like this.

I'm watching this daily and talking to my contacts about where the next moves come from. Andrew and I are tracking the setups in Capitol Gains and will have alerts ready when the entries line up.

The headlines say peace. The troop ships say otherwise. I know which one I'm trading.

Take care,

Frank