What if JNIM overruns Bamako and topples Mali's junta?
JNIM overrunning Bamako installs an al-Qaeda-aligned authority over Sahel gold corridors — the cleanest trade is gold's risk/scarcity bid, with a mild equity risk-off alongside. Analogue: the 2012 Tuareg/AQIM seizure of northern Mali (and Operation Serval), which disrupted the region but moved gold via the broader risk channel, not Mali output specifically. Note: the roots use an invalid 'XAU' factor absent from the vocabulary; gold strength here is better expressed through geopolitical risk and weaker risk appetite.
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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 (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), 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. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. JNIM overruns Bamako, the Malian junta collapses and flees, installing an al-Qaeda-aligned authority over the capital and Sahel gold corridors. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.