Every call, dated and scored in public

Iran and Oman announced a Hormuz navigation framework in late August

The stated event did not occur. On August 25, 2026 the foreign ministers of Oman and Iran issued a joint statement after consultations in Tehran, published by the Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, setting out a phased framework for the Strait of Hormuz. It provides for a joint temporary navigational corridor and an agreement to carry out a joint mine clearing project, with technical talks to continue on a permanent corridor, future administration of the Strait, information sharing, traffic management and navigational services. On August 26 Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on state television that Iran and Oman had agreed the temporary route, and an IRGC spokesperson confirmed agreement on each country's share of the waters. An officially announced Iran and Oman framework on Hormuz navigation therefore existed more than a month before the September 30 deadline, and the claim that none would appear resolves as not occurring. The statement calls its framework a basis for moving forward rather than a final treaty; the result does not turn on that distinction, because the claim covers any framework agreement published or officially announced, and both governments announced an agreed corridor under it. The mechanism explained what followed only in part. The two coastal states did move first on a bilateral arrangement, as the call expected, but the framework did not restore normal traffic. Gharibabadi said the strait remained closed pending US commitments under the June memorandum, the Iranian Navy warned ships against routes it had not approved, and daily transits did not recover to a seven day average of 50 vessels by September 30, as call 015-4 recorded. The call was reasonable given what was known in Issue 14. Iranian officials had described talks with Oman on a new transit framework since late May. At 14 the ledger leaned firmly toward an announcement, and that lean was right. This is a legacy call without a named resolution source; it was resolved against the Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs joint statement, the primary document, and confirmed by independent reporting.

• Oman Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Joint Statement between Oman and Iran following Foreign Ministers' consultations, August 25, 2026
• gCaptain: Iran and Oman unveil framework for future management of Strait of Hormuz
• Al Jazeera: Iran, Oman agree on temporary Hormuz route: What we know
• Ship and Bunker: Iran warns ships against using alternative Hormuz transit route

Gold stayed well below its January peak through the third quarter

The stated event occurred. No LBMA Gold Price fixing from July 1 to September 30, 2026 reached the January peak, and gold set no new all-time high in the quarter. The January 28 PM fixing was $5,306.95, and the record fixings came a day later, $5,501.70 in the AM auction and $5,405.00 in the PM auction on January 29. The highest fixing in the third quarter was $4,634.20 in the AM auction on August 24, about 13 percent below the January 28 PM level. The World Gold Council put the August 31 PM price at $4,563, and futures closed September near $4,170 after a monthly fall of about 8 percent. The mechanism explained part of what followed. The January premium did not return even though the US and Iran conflict continued through the quarter, which fits the view that the war premium had unwound. The larger driver in the quarter was rates: rising real yields, a stronger dollar and expectations of a Federal Reserve rate increase pulled gold lower in September, while an August rally on ETF and futures inflows stopped well short of the peak. The call was reasonable given what was known in Issue 9; by the end of the second quarter the fixing was near $4,026, more than 25 percent below the peak, and a full recovery inside three months needed a rise of about a third. At 71 it was, if anything, cautious. The claim names January 28 as the peak, while LBMA records the high on January 29; the result is the same under either date, because no third quarter fixing came within $650 of either level.

• LBMA Precious Metals Market Report: Q2 2026
• World Gold Council: Gold Market Commentary, August 2026
• SD Bullion: 2026 daily LBMA Gold Price AM and PM fixings
• Gold Price Tracker: Gold price history, September 2026
• Texas Precious Metals: Market update, September 30, 2026

Argentina's Senate passed the property law without the land cap

The stated event did not occur. The Senate gave the Ley de Inviolabilidad de la Propiedad Privada its half sanction on August 7, 2026, by 37 votes to 33, but Chapter III on rural land, which carried a 25 percent cap per province on foreign holdings, had been withdrawn before the vote, according to the Senate's own press release. The text that passed contains no cap on foreign ownership of rural land. The mechanism explained what followed: the land chapter was the part that split the Senate, and the governing bloc traded it away to pass the rest. The question then moved to the courts; on September 30 the Supreme Court revoked a lower court ruling that had suspended the repeal of the Rural Lands Law under DNU 70/2023, on standing grounds rather than on the merits. The call was reasonable given what was known at issue, since the cap language was contested and the vote count was thin. As of the scoring date, the rules on foreign rural ownership rest on a decree under legislative and judicial challenge rather than on a new statute.

• Senado de la Nacion: Obtuvo media sancion la ley de inviolabilidad de la propiedad privada
• Infobae: el oficialismo dio de baja el capitulo de venta de tierras a extranjeros (August 5, 2026)
• Chequeado: 5 claves del proyecto que el Senado aprobo con cambios
• Vanguardia: Argentina vuelve a permitir la compra de tierras rurales sin el limite para extranjeros (September 30, 2026)

Washington held its line on Hormuz charges through September

The stated event occurred: through September 30, 2026, the United States did not publicly accept any arrangement under which Iran collects a fee, toll or service charge from transiting vessels. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on June 24 that no country may charge tolls or fees on an international waterway, President Trump said in August that he would not let Iran charge, and on September 26 he rejected Iran's latest reopening proposal. The Iran and Oman joint statement of August 25 omitted fees altogether, which reporting at the time read as a concession to the US position. The mechanism held: Washington treated charges as a sovereignty question rather than a pricing one, and Tehran kept the issue alive only through Iranian media accounts that no US official confirmed. The call was reasonable given what was known at issue; the June memorandum had left the post-60-day position open, which justified a lean rather than near certainty. One caution: Iranian outlets reported in June that Washington accepted service fees in principle, and no US official confirmed it, so the result rests on public US statements as the claim requires.

• Al Jazeera: Rubio says Iran cannot charge tolls in Hormuz (June 24, 2026)
• Al Jazeera: Hormuz deal close, the latest on each side's positions (August 6, 2026)
• Seatrade Maritime: Iran-Oman Hormuz plan adds complexity
• Al Jazeera: Trump rejects Iran's seven-day roadmap (September 26, 2026)

Hormuz traffic never came close to 50 a day

The stated event occurred: daily transit calls through the Strait of Hormuz did not recover to a seven-day average of 50 or more on or before September 30, 2026. IMF PortWatch data, as reported by independent trackers, peaked at a single day of 51 transits on June 24, averaged about 18 a day in the first half of July, and fell to roughly 12 a day in the week of July 13 to 19. Lloyd's List Intelligence and Kpler counted about 12 to 14 vessels a day in late August, and daily counts in September fell to between 1 and 7. The mechanism explained the path: transits depend on a durable political settlement and on insurance, and neither arrived; the June memorandum lifted traffic briefly, renewed attacks and the restored blockade cut it again. US officials claimed 30 to 40 escorted ships a night in early September, a figure that AIS based counts do not show; even taken at face value it would not reach the threshold on the PortWatch measure. The call was reasonable, though at 55 it was too cautious; the size of the gap between the threshold and observed traffic in mid July was the signal underweighted. The PortWatch series itself could not be accessed directly for this scoring, and the figures rest on three independent secondary reports of it and of comparable tracker data.

• World Monitor: Strait of Hormuz transit report, July 2026 (IMF PortWatch data)
• Statista: June and July saw moderate ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz
• Al Jazeera: How much oil is going through Hormuz? (September 3, 2026)
• Straits.live: Strait of Hormuz status, September 30, 2026

Four September calls scored on their stated dates: three correct, one wrong. The wrong one is the ledger's largest miss.

013-2, wrong. Issue 13 rated a Federal Reserve rate increase at the July or September meeting at 16, unlikely. The Committee held at 3.50 to 3.75 percent on July 29, with three members dissenting in favor of an increase, then raised the range to 3.75 to 4.00 percent by a unanimous vote on September 16. The three July dissents were the signal the call underweighted. Its Brier contribution, 0.71, is the largest single error on the ledger, and it is published here first for that reason.

010-1, correct. The same two meetings produced no cut below the 3.50 percent floor. 015-1, correct. The Iranian and Omani foreign ministers issued a joint statement on August 25 setting out a phased framework for Hormuz navigation, including a temporary shipping corridor and joint mine clearance. 016-3, correct. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry stated on September 2 that Iran struck the Bahri tanker Sidr in the strait on August 31.

The results were checked against Federal Reserve FOMC statements, the joint statement as reported by Iranian and international outlets, and the Saudi Foreign Ministry statement.

A note on the scoring rule. From this update, a call is marked correct when the outcome went the way its confidence leaned: above 50, the stated event occurred; below 50, it did not. 013-2 is scored on that rule, since the event it rated at 16 occurred. 008-1 was marked wrong in August under the earlier reading, which marked any call wrong when its stated event did not occur. Under the current rule it would score correct, since the arrangement lapsed as its 22 confidence leaned. It stays as published, because the ledger does not rewrite a result after the fact. The Brier score weighs every call by its stated confidence against whether the stated event occurred, so it is unaffected by either reading, and the ledger now publishes it beside the count.

Seven August calls scored on their stated dates: six correct, one wrong.

Portugal had not published the required nationality-regulation amendment by August 16. The June Hormuz passage arrangement then expired without renewal, making 008-1 the ledger's first miss. No new or restored US Treasury crude-oil authorization appeared by August 20. A deadly August 11 vessel attack satisfied the Houthi-attack condition, while the narrower condition requiring two independent sources to attribute an attack to Iran did not occur. The blockade was not publicly rescinded by August 21. Colombia published Decree 1261 under Article 215 on August 19. The results were checked against Portugal's official legal register, US Treasury records, independent maritime reporting, and Colombia's presidency and legal register.

003-1 resolved correct on August 11, 2026. The fourth call to score, and the fourth to land correct.

Issue 3 forecast, at 95 and highly likely, that Colombia's Proyecto de Ley 238, the foreign farmland cap, would not pass into law before the August 7 inauguration. The outgoing Congress spent its final sitting week on where to hold the inauguration rather than on the land bill, which was not among the eight reforms refiled on July 20, and the transfer of power proceeded to Cali on August 7. The falsification condition, passage into law before the handover, never triggered. The honest limit still holds: all four calls scored so far sit in the confident bands, so what four hits prove is narrow.

007-1 resolved correct on June 29, 2026.

On June 12 the Brief forecast, at 88 and marked highly likely, that Colombia's June 21 runoff would be certified with the losing candidate conceding within seven days. The Consejo Nacional Electoral declared the result on June 24 with 99.997 percent coincidence to the election-night count; Ivan Cepeda conceded the same day. Both certification and concession landed inside the window, and the call scored correct on its stated date, before the transition crisis that followed. The next calls score across August, September, and October.