🛢 Energy & Commodities mixed · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Australian locust plague ravages a recovering grain crop?

A major locust outbreak strips swathes of Australian wheat and barley after good rains, snatching away an expected export rebound and lifting prices.

23%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 23% · 90% range 2–43% · 10 analogues · measured class climate 85% in 18 mo · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — climate ≈1.2554/yr → 85% in 18 mo85%
Analyst prior · editorial share 28% of the class24%
Pooled · weight 62%23%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)23%
Published23%

The class rate is measured from our dated, sourced event library (decade-normalized Poisson — the full table is public at base_rates.json). The variant’s share within its class is the analyst’s editorial call, published so you can audit it. A wider range means thinner precedent. Full recipe: methodology · scored at Reality Check.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (gold) over time vs the crowd's (Polymarket, blue), from the past toward the 6–18 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. The gold path is an illustrative reconstruction anchored to today's estimate — real dated events, not a live re-estimate history.

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A major locust outbreak strips swathes of Australian wheat and barley after good rains, snatching away an expected export rebound and lifting prices. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Wheat ▲ · Biodiversity loss ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ · Food inflation ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

If it happens — the markets it would move

Biggest moves first. Projected moves are cascade-model priors; hist A–B% = what comparable past events actually did (measured abnormal returns), and model prior · unmeasured marks markets with no analogue backing yet. Tap any market for its price history.

MarketClassProjected move
1Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.9%
hist -5.68–+8.12% · other way -4.13% (n=9)
2Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.4%
hist -1.26–+1.89% · other way +1.88% (n=9)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
Short
For a common-man portfolio: Mixed for a typical portfolio — the move is more about rotation than direction. Favour the winners over the losers below rather than net exposure.

Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did

Across 10 analogous events (overlap‑weighted), as abnormal returns — market beta stripped, so it's the event's own effect, not the market backdrop. Shown at 20 days (persistent) and 5 days (immediate); ↺ fades = the two horizons disagree. Confidence = consistency × sample × significance.

IPBES warns ~1 million species face extinction 2019-05 H5N1 bird flu record US egg prices 2025-04 Crude oil all-time high 2008-07 Chernobyl disaster 1986-04 Silver Thursday 1980-03 Gold peaks at $850 1980-01 Volcker Saturday Night Special 1979-10 1979 Iranian Revolution oil shock 1979-01 1974 sugar price spike to record 65+ cents 1974-11 Nixon Shock 1971-08
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
Bitcoin BTCLONG+29.5% · 5d +7.0%100%2 0.75·
WHEAT WHEATLONG+7.9% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades71%3 0.34✓ matches cascade
Gold XAULONG+0.7% · 5d +2.9%71%3 0.34·
CORN CORNSHORT-1.6% · 5d -4.0%57%3 0.11⚠ differs
Volatility VIXSHORT-6.4% · 5d +1.1% ↺ fades57%3 0.11·
US dollar DXYLONG+0.1% · 5d -0.0% ↺ fades38%10 0.00·
High-yield credit HYGLONG+0.3% · 5d +0.2%43%3 0.00·
10y yield DGS10LONG+1bp · 5d +2bp48%10 0.00·

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Crowd odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-07-03.