What if a summer-spec switch squeezes US gasoline supplies?
Summer-spec RVP switchover plus refinery glitches drains US gasoline ahead of driving season, blowing out RBOB cracks while crude lags; the trade is long gasoline cracks, not flat Brent. Rhymes with recurring spring gasoline-crack spikes (e.g. 2022 and 2024 pre-Memorial-Day draws) driven by the seasonal spec change and unplanned outages, with crude largely a spectator. Forward angle: thinner US refining slack post-closures makes the seasonal switchover bottleneck sharper in 2026; capture it via the gasoline crack rather than chasing flat price.
how we built this number — every step
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 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. The gold path is an illustrative reconstruction anchored to today's estimate — real dated events, not a live re-estimate history.
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. Summer-spec switchover plus refinery glitches drains US gasoline inventories ahead of driving season. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Oil demand ▲ · Gasoline ▲ · Oil supply risk ▲ — 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.
| Market | Class | Projected move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.8% hist +0.24–+1.24% · other way -0.58% (n=11) |
| 2 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.6% hist -0.9–+1.49% · other way +2.74% (n=12) |
| 3 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.1% hist -0.17–+1.89% · other way +-0.0% (n=12) |
| 4 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.0% hist -2.52–+6.07% · other way +6.37% (n=11) |
| 5 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.8% hist -0.52–+2.53% · other way -2.54% (n=12) |
| 6 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.7% hist -0.31–+1.93% · other way -0.49% (n=12) |
| 7 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.14–+2.71% · other way +5.86% (n=11) |
| 8 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +2bp hist -5.31–+18.54% · other way +8.1% (n=12) |
| 9 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.26–+-0.0% · other way +0.42% (n=12) |
| 10 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +2bp hist -4.36–+18.46% · other way +10.0% (n=12) |
| 11 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.56–+0.12% · other way +1.35% (n=12) |
| 12 | 2y Treasury yield DGS2 | Rate | ▲ +1bp model prior · unmeasured |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade LONG on CL/BRENT: a summer gasoline-inventory squeeze is supply-tightening, yet history's negative print clusters in demand-collapse regimes (2014 OPEC, 2020 price war) — base rate off-channel.
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.
| Asset | History says | Abnormal (20d · 5d) | Hit | n | Confidence | vs cascade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +16bp · 5d +9bp | 64% | 40 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +2.2% · 5d +3.6% | 65% | 32 | 0.25 | · |
| DAL DAL | LONG | +2.8% · 5d +0.0% | 63% | 31 | 0.24 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.2% | 65% | 31 | 0.22 | · |
| 30y yield DGS30 | LONG | +16bp · 5d +8bp | 60% | 40 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CVX CVX | LONG | +1.4% · 5d +0.2% | 60% | 40 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| UAL UAL | LONG | +6.0% · 5d +0.1% | 61% | 31 | 0.18 | ⚠ differs |
| XOM XOM | LONG | +2.0% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 58% | 40 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -1.0% | 58% | 33 | 0.13 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.3% · 5d +0.3% | 57% | 40 | 0.13 | · |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -0.9% · 5d -2.9% | 56% | 30 | 0.09 | · |
| Gold XAU | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -1.1% | 55% | 31 | 0.08 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CL CL | SHORT | -1.6% · 5d -1.8% | 54% | 31 | 0.06 | ⚠ differs |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -1.1% | 52% | 31 | 0.04 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Summer RVP switchover squeezes are near-annual; high base rate for inventory draw. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.