Recently, U.S. President Trump claimed that he has communicated with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf about "ending the war" and hinted that this could be a key move to change the current landscape in the Middle East. Almost immediately after the news circulated, Iranian officials quickly denied the claims through Ghalibaf's official account, not only denying the existence of such negotiations but also labeling related reports as "fake news used to manipulate financial and oil markets." In this back-and-forth verbal battle, what struck the market nerves more was Ghalibaf's simultaneous assertion: The security situation in the Strait of Hormuz will not return to pre-war conditions. This means that from the investors' perspective, the "new normal" of Middle Eastern energy and shipping is likely higher uncertainty and more prolonged tension. Around the narratives of "Are there negotiations?" and "Is the situation easing?" expectations for oil prices, shipping rate risks, and sentiments in the cryptocurrency market were rapidly ignited, and the information war itself began to turn into a tradable asset.

Details Revealed a Week Later: Trump Throws Out a "Suspense Time Anchor"

In public statements, Trump claimed that he has already communicated with Ghalibaf about ending the war, while emphasizing that "more details will be provided in about a week," which was continuously relayed through specific media channels and anonymous "A/C sources." This approach, which released signals of "high-level contact" while deliberately retaining details and creating channel ambiguity, made the news seem more like a carefully designed "suspense package," leaving ample space for the media and market to imagine.

The phrase "a week later" actually constitutes a clear time anchor. In this countdown, the media had a sustained rhythm to track and amplify the topic, while market participants were forced to reprice potential scenarios of "U.S.-Iran easing" in a phase where information was still incomplete: should they bet on the possibility of future negotiations now, or should they choose to wait for Trump to publicly disclose more before taking action? In a world of high-volatility assets, a week is enough to complete several rounds of intense emotional cycles.

Trump's consistent media manipulation style has given this statement a more complex meaning. He has previously used social media, interview previews, and "insider information" to guide narrative direction, create expectations of negotiations or hardline stances, and then influence opponents' psychology and market expectations based on that. With such a past record, even if this contact has not yet been verified by any independent sources, the market will still be highly sensitive to keywords like "ending the war"—because even though the facts have not yet been solidified, the narrative itself can already be priced.

In the absence of significant details, price behavior often precedes the establishment of facts. Some funds may take positions based on the assumption that "if negotiations are real, Middle Eastern risk premium will decline," anticipating pathways for oil price adjustments, shipping rate easing, and even risk asset rebounds; another portion may bet on "Trump signaling but failing to negotiate," seeking higher premiums amid the volatility. Thus, before the "week later" promised by Trump actually arrived, the market had already begun to make real bets around an uncertain future.

Fake News Allegations and Hardline Statements: Iran's Multi-Layered Signals

In sharp contrast to Trump's vague forecasts, Ghalibaf quickly provided a clear, negative statement through his official account: he publicly stated that the so-called talks with Trump were "the fake news used to manipulate financial and oil markets." This statement not only directly denied any substantive contact but also identified the "beneficiaries" in his view: those participants who used negotiation rumors to preemptively position themselves and amplify volatility in financial and oil markets.

More impactful in the market is the judgment he immediately threw out—The security situation in the Strait of Hormuz will not return to pre-war conditions. Given that the key energy corridor has already been under high alert multiple times, this statement was interpreted by the market as a long-term signal: regardless of whether there are localized easing moves, Iran does not intend to send out an optimistic expectation of "returning to a peaceful state," but rather sees "continuous tension" as the new baseline scenario. This directly affects the long-term pricing framework for oil prices, shipping rates, and insurance costs, rather than a temporary emotional fluctuation.

Iran's need to quickly define its stance after the emergence of negotiation rumors is driven by multiple considerations. Domestically, with high pressure and sacrifices already incurring substantial costs, the sudden surfacing of "private negotiations" could easily be interpreted by hardline factions at home as weakness or secret compromise, damaging the authorities' political legitimacy. Externally, Iran needs to maintain its posture of "not easily undermined by sanctions and threats," sending a message to the U.S. and its allies that "strategies will not change due to a few pieces of news." In terms of public opinion control, competing for narrative power on global social media has become part of national security; allowing "negotiation rumors" to ferment would mean handing over narrative dominance to opponents.

In this logic, Ghalibaf's denial not only failed to bring comfort of "situation de-escalation" to the market but instead, in the short term, raised the risk premium. On one hand, Trump's "possible negotiation" narrative was hedged, reducing easing expectations; on the other hand, the positioning of "won't return to pre-war conditions" led funds to start pricing for a longer-term high-risk environment. For risk assets, this is not a simple piece of "bad news," but rather a complex variable that will continuously ferment in options, term structures, and cross-market spreads.

Information War Front: Negotiation and Confrontation Wrapped as Tradable Narratives

When Ghalibaf directly labeled related reports as "fake news used to manipulate financial and oil markets," he effectively pinpointed an increasingly significant dimension of modern geopolitical conflicts: the information war itself is a tool that affects financial pricing. In this context, truth and falsehood are no longer the only important questions; rather, more crucial is—who first tells their version to the market, and who is better at packaging their narrative as a "fact candidate" that can be adopted by prices.

The tug-of-war between the U.S. and Iran over discourse power is precisely a reflection of this game. One side attempts to release the imagination of "negotiation window" and "ending the war" to ease tensions, rally allies, and divide opponents, while simultaneously warming up for potential policy shifts; the other side emphasizes statements like "the Strait of Hormuz won't return to pre-war conditions" and "fake news manipulating the market," solidifying the impression of "long-term confrontation" and avoiding any gaps that could be perceived as concession in deterrence. The result is that the market is bombarded by two sets of mutually counteracting narratives, forced to choose one version as a basis despite lacking sufficient evidence.

Placed in the context of the critical Strait of Hormuz, the financial consequences of this discourse tug-of-war are magnified. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the key corridors for Middle Eastern crude oil and refined product exports; even without any new military conflicts, public statements around "safety" and "control" will cause traders to reassess the probability distribution of supply disruptions. Thus, a single tweet or a snippet from an interview is enough to trigger a significant repricing of energy-related assets.

In this structure, information asymmetry and delays become the natural soil for amplifying speculative play:

● If funds get early access to a particular narrative, they can position related varieties before it is disseminated by mainstream media, profiting or losing from price reactions.

● When information is disseminated in different languages and platforms with different versions, facts are refracted multiple times, and the narrative itself becomes a form of "tradable asset"—the trade is not on verified realities but on the differing stories from all sides regarding future realities.

In the U.S.-Iran game, the so-called "negotiation or not" roiling waters is a classic case of an information war: negotiation windows, sustained confrontation, fake news, and market manipulation—once these labels are attached, they come with intrinsic price meanings.

Strait of Hormuz Passage Expectations: Tankers Lacking, Prices Ahead

From the market perspective, the current Middle Eastern risk pricing is no longer merely a binary judgment of "war or peace," but rather considers whether passage through the Strait of Hormuz as an independent, tradable new variable. Even in the current absence of specific data on tanker passage authorizations or passage quantities, trading logic can still revolve around "whether the passage order is stable": any signals that could be interpreted as "less safe" or "less predictable" will be added to the risk premium.

“Will not return to pre-war conditions” establishes a new thinking framework for the market: for a considerable time in the future, the military presence around Hormuz, escort arrangements, inspections, and accompanying frictions are likely to be seen as the norm, rather than a brief interlude. For pricing models, this means incorporating longer-term security costs, insurance expenses, and potential interruption probabilities into the pivot levels of oil and shipping prices, rather than only reflecting these through short-term fluctuations.

Under the highly uncertain conditions regarding passage orders, energy, shipping, and the financial derivatives constructed around them begin a game surrounding the binary scenarios of "disrupted or not disrupted." On one end is the scenario of "generally maintaining passage while only increasing friction in marginal areas," corresponding to a moderately rising risk premium; on the other end is the scenario of "occurring phase interruptions or major accidents," corresponding to soaring implied volatility in options, distortion of forward curves, and prolonged cross-hedge chains. The market will adjust the weights of these two scenarios based on each piece of news related to Hormuz.

Once actual policies or military actions regarding the easing or tightening of passage emerge, the market rhythm often switches from "first trading expectations" to "trading realities." Positions built on negotiation rumors and hardline statements may undergo concentrated settlement, with prices converging closer to the facts, and new expectation cycles commencing thereafter. This rhythm of "trading stories first, then making price corrections based on realities" is a common pattern in current geopolitical-financial interactions.

From Oil Prices to Coin Prices: How Risk Events Penetrate a Multi-Asset World

Without exaggerating the precise correlations, it can be observed that significant geopolitical and energy volatility events, such as the U.S.-Iran negotiation roiling waters, often influence broader risk asset pricing through two main lines: inflation expectations and risk aversion sentiment. On one hand, uncertainty in Hormuz is interpreted as a source that could potentially elevate energy costs, thereby raising long-term inflation expectations, prompting investors to reassess interest rate paths and asset discount rates; on the other hand, geopolitical conflicts can trigger rebalancing behaviors where "safe-haven assets are favored while some high-risk assets are sold off."

Different types of market participants adopt inconsistent strategies under the same event:

● Traditional commodity funds more directly hedge or speculate around oil prices, shipping rates, and related stock indices, with the core goal of locking in costs and returns, rather than hedging broader macro volatility.

● Macro hedge funds connect the U.S.-Iran situation with macro factors such as interest rates, exchange rates, and stock-bond correlations, seeking mispriced opportunities over a longer time frame and broader asset basket.

● Cryptocurrency traders tend to interpret through the lenses of sentiment and liquidity: whether geopolitical tensions may propel the "digital safe-haven" narrative of certain assets, or trigger a chain reaction of risk aversion and leverage reduction in the short term.

As information wars drive sentiments into traditional assets, such volatility is often amplified in the high leverage, 24-hour trading cryptocurrency market. The same combination of "negotiation rumor + hardline denial" may reflect as a few points of increase in implied volatility in the oil market, while in the cryptocurrency market it may evolve into cascade liquidations and severe fluctuations of 10% to 20%. The high sensitivity of crypto assets makes them more likely to serve as "amplifiers" for cross-market sentiments.

For ordinary investors faced with future similar event combinations, it may be beneficial to analyze decision-making from three dimensions: information sources, distinguishing between official, media, second-hand relay, and social media rumors to avoid being led by a single channel; time windows, identifying whether the event is in the "rumor fermentation phase," "official definition phase," or "policy implementation phase," corresponding to different volatility structures and opportunities; asset exposure, assessing one's overall leverage level and interrelationships between relevant assets instead of focusing solely on a single target, avoiding pushing positions to extremes during the hottest narratives.

Negotiation Roiling Waters Continues: Building a Fault-Tolerance Framework Amid Uncertainty

Whether this U.S.-Iran "negotiation rumor" eventually turns out to be a misinterpretation, manipulation, or some immature contact attempt, one point has become relatively clear: the information war has become a normal tool in the era of geopolitical conflicts. From Trump releasing the suspense of "details will be disclosed in about a week" to Iran swiftly retaliating with the label of "fake news manipulating the market," both sides are actively utilizing the rhythm of information and narrative packaging to influence opponents' judgments and financial market pricing, rather than passively responding to events.

In such an environment, treating every major headline as a trend "turning point" is a highly risky behavior. Key details missing, single-source information, and incomplete evidence chains often suit being seen as volatility triggers rather than fundamental variables capable of changing the fundamentals. For traders and investors, a more prudent approach is not to bet on "this time it will definitely be different," but rather to ask themselves: if this time is just another round of information warfare rather than a genuine negotiation breakthrough, can my positions withstand it?

As the deadline approaches for Trump to disclose more details, multiple paths may emerge: he might provide some contact clues to prove he is "not just talking nonsense," or he might continue to handle things ambiguously, treating it as part of his electoral and diplomatic toolset; Iran might moderately adjust its discourse or continue emphasizing the position of "long-term tension" based on internal games and external pressures. For the market, a more reasonable response would be to construct multiple potential paths through scenario simulations, rather than betting on the inevitable realization of a single path.

In a geopolitically high-uncertainty environment, building a multi-asset portfolio, reserving liquidity, and lowering overall leverage often hold more long-term survival value than "going big" on a single event. What truly matters is not predicting each roiling water's truth in advance but rather designing an investment framework that won't be easily eliminated through multiple rounds of roiling waters.

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