JPMorgan Says It Can No Longer Predict End of Iran War as Trump Ignores Economic Red Lines

JPMorgan's oil and gas research team has stopped trying to forecast when the war involving Iran will end, according to a report from CNBC citing the bank's analysts. The team said it had previously assumed that certain economic pressure points would compel President Donald Trump to negotiate an agreement to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, but those assumptions have not held.

According to the CNBC report, JPMorgan's analysts identified several "redlines" at the outset of the conflict — economic thresholds they believed would be significant enough to push the Trump administration toward brokering a resolution that would ensure continued oil flows through the strait. The report states that Trump has since surpassed those thresholds without such an agreement materializing.

The Strait of Hormuz is a critical corridor for global oil shipments, and any disruption to traffic through the waterway has long been viewed by energy markets as a major risk factor for global oil supply and pricing.

The bank's decision to abandon its forecasting effort, as described in the CNBC report, reflects the difficulty analysts have faced in predicting the trajectory of the conflict and the U.S. response to it. CNBC did not specify in the excerpt reviewed what alternative approach, if any, JPMorgan's team plans to take going forward.

Further details on the specific economic redlines referenced, the current state of the war, and the administration's stated position were not included in the available excerpt of the report.