Monday Afternoon Freight Intelligence | August 3, 2026
MAFI Weekly is intended to save premium subscribers the hours of individual research that they would otherwise have to carry out each Monday; this week's focus is on a genuine Hormuz de-escalation, the August import cliff which all retailers had expected, the $5 billion wave of refunds finally arriving in bank accounts, the rail bottleneck in Baltimore which has just disappeared, and the freight equipment shortage which no one is referring to.
Hormuz Traffic Hits Multi-Month Lows as Shipowners Stay Cautious
Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is for the first time in weeks showing a move towards calm instead of chaos. As reported by USNI News, traffic in the strait has kept on falling, bringing the amount of vessels passing through down to the level last seen in March. This follows Reuters' report from mid-July, which stated that tanker traffic had already reached a two-month low as a result of shipowners becoming more cautious after the renewed attacks. It should be stressed that this decline is due to the continued caution displayed by shipowners and operators and not because there has been a confirmed decrease in attacks by vessels – the Joint Maritime Information Center has confirmed that commercial traffic is still at reduced levels, but has not stated that the frequency of attacks has decreased.
