Central Banks & Macro risk-off · 0–6 months
A what‑if from the future

What if US inflation runs hot at over 1% in a single month?

A 1%+ MoM CPI surprise reprices the Fed path hawkishly; the cleanest trade is long-duration tech down as real yields jump and breakevens widen. Rhymes with the Feb-2024 hot CPI that knocked the Nasdaq ~1.7% and added 15bp to 10s in a session. Note today's setup: with the cutting cycle in train, a single hot print is more likely to be faded as noise than in 2022 — sharper initial gap, faster mean-reversion.

12%
our model probability
over 0–6 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 12% · 90% range 4–21% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

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 0–6 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…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. US CPI prints a shock 1%+ month-over-month, reviving an inflation scare. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Inflation surprise ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.