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

What if a Chinese harvest shortfall drives a surge in global grain and soybean imports?

A Chinese harvest shortfall drives a surge in grain and soybean imports, tightening global supply and lifting world prices, a demand-side food-inflation shock from the largest importer.

9%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 9% · 90% range 2–16% · 40 analogues · measured class china_growth 98% in 18 mo · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — china_growth ≈2.5597/yr → 98% in 18 mo98%
Analyst prior · editorial share 8% of the class8%
Pooled · weight 87%9%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)9%
Published9%

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 Chinese harvest shortfall drives a surge in grain and soybean imports, tightening global supply and lifting world prices, a demand-side food-inflation shock from the largest importer. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Corn ▲ · Wheat ▲ · China growth ▲ · 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
1Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.4%
hist -1.64–+0.94% · other way +0.75% (n=9)
2Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.3%
hist -2.14–+0.7% · other way -5.55% (n=9)
3Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.2%
hist -0.05–+0.18% · other way +0.23% (n=9)
4Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chartEquity▲ +0.2%
hist -0.19–+0.88% · other way +8.8% (n=10)
5China internet KWEBon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▲ +0.2%
hist -0.29–+0.83% · other way +3.43% (n=7)
6Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▲ +0.2%
hist -0.55–+1.3% · other way -3.64% (n=7)

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.
Also moves (not yet on Hyperliquid): Freeport (copper) +0.2%

Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did

Across 40 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.

Iranian rial slides to a new record low 2025-12 Record $19bn crypto liquidation cascade 2025-10 US-China extend tariff truce by another 90 days 2025-08 Platinum hits an 11-year high on Chinese jewelry demand and deficit 2025-06 US and China agree Geneva tariff truce, slashing rates 2025-05 US bars Nvidia H20 AI-chip exports to China 2025-04 H5N1 bird flu record US egg prices 2025-04 China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 DeepSeek shock crushes AI-power utilities Vistra and Constellation 2025-01 Nasdaq Composite first close above 20000 2024-12 US October 2022 advanced-computing chip rules tighten further 2024-12 Henry Hub natural gas falls to an all-time inflation-adjusted low on record output 2024-11 ASML bookings-miss crash 2024-10 China 'bazooka' stimulus package 2024-09 China imposes antimony export controls 2024-08 Homebuilders rally as cool June CPI fuels rate-cut bets 2024-07 USD/JPY hits a 38-year high before a CPI-driven intervention 2024-07 Hot January CPI delays Fed-cut hopes 2024-02 Evergrande ordered to liquidate 2024-01 Netherlands restricts ASML DUV lithography exports to China 2023-09 China imposes gallium and germanium export controls 2023-07 China bars Micron from critical infrastructure after security review 2023-05 Alibaba announces historic split into six business units 2023-03 Lithium carbonate price peaks near 597,000 RMB/t 2022-11 Cool October 2022 CPI sparks huge bond-and-bank rally 2022-11 Offshore yuan hits a record low 2022-11 Hot September 2022 CPI sends yields and curve to cycle extremes 2022-10 US advanced-chip export controls on China 2022-10 US export controls on advanced chips to China 2022-10 PBOC sets yuan fix at weakest since 2008 2022-09 August 2022 hot CPI 2022-09 Powell's hawkish 'pain' speech at Jackson Hole 2022-08 Inflation Reduction Act signed into law 2022-08 China fires ballistic missiles into Japan's EEZ during Taiwan drills 2022-08 China homebuyer mortgage boycott spreads 2022-07 June 2022 CPI prints 9.1% 2022-07 Tesla Q2 2022 deliveries fall on Shanghai COVID lockdown 2022-07 May 2022 US CPI sends S&P into a bear market 2022-06 Sunac China dollar-bond default 2022-05 Sri Lanka suspends external debt payments 2022-04
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
WHEAT WHEATSHORT-2.0% · 5d -0.6%65%40 0.25⚠ differs
10y yield DGS10LONG+8bp · 5d +3bp65%40 0.25·
FCX FCXLONG+0.7% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades62%40 0.19✓ matches cascade
CORN CORNSHORT-1.8% · 5d -0.9%55%40 0.08⚠ differs
Volatility VIXSHORT-0.0% · 5d -0.7%55%40 0.08·
Bitcoin BTCSHORT-0.8% · 5d -4.0%55%40 0.07·
XCU XCUSHORT-0.1% · 5d -0.6%50%40 0.00⚠ differs
KWEB KWEBLONG+0.7% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades47%40 0.00✓ matches cascade
BABA BABALONG+1.2% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades47%40 0.00✓ matches cascade
Gold XAULONG+0.0% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades47%40 0.00·
US dollar DXYLONG+0.0% · 5d -0.4% ↺ fades50%40 0.00·
High-yield credit HYGLONG+0.0% · 5d -0.0% ↺ fades45%40 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.