What if Ghana's cedi slides past 18 as reserves drain away?
Cocoa and gold shortfalls draining Ghana's reserves snap the cedi and revive default chatter on its 2024-restructured debt; the cleanest read is wider frontier-sovereign spreads, not global HY. Rhymes with Ghana's own 2022 DDEP collapse and Zambia's 2020 default. Ghana funds imports off cocoa/gold receipts to China and Switzerland; a receipts miss is self-reinforcing. Forward: post-restructuring, the marginal holder is distressed funds, so the move is contained versus 2022.
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 risk-off shock. Cocoa and gold export shortfalls drain Ghana's reserves, snapping the cedi past 18/USD and reviving default chatter. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — EM currencies ▼ · Credit spreads ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ — 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 | Turkish lira TRY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.58–+0.49% · other way -0.81% (n=11) |
| 2 | Indian rupee INR 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.5% hist -1.04–+0.18% · other way -0.86% (n=11) |
| 3 | High-yield credit HYG 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.61–+0.06% · other way -0.33% (n=11) |
| 4 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.34–-0.04% · other way -0.46% (n=11) |
| 5 | Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.2% hist -0.43–+1.27% · other way -4.35% (n=11) |
| 6 | Financials XLF 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.88–+0.21% · other way -0.05% (n=11) |
| 7 | Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.2% hist -0.43–+0.37% · other way -2.96% (n=11) |
| 8 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -4.41–+1.5% · other way +27.34% (n=11) |
| 9 | JPMorgan JPM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.58–+0.28% · other way +1.69% (n=11) |
| 10 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +0.2% hist -2.81–+7.94% · other way -6.09% (n=11) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on MSTR: BTC is the dominant driver — the +6.8% history is SVB-2023 bull contamination, and a Ghana cedi reserve drain cannot transmit to a US crypto proxy.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPM JPM | SHORT | -1.3% · 5d -1.8% | 69% | 38 | 0.32 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -0.2% | 64% | 11 | 0.25 | · |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.0% | 60% | 30 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -1.0% | 59% | 32 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +7.3% · 5d +2.3% | 59% | 34 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | SHORT | -4.0% · 5d -3.0% | 59% | 32 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -11bp · 5d -5bp | 54% | 40 | 0.08 | · |
| TRY TRY | LONG | +0.8% · 5d +1.0% | 55% | 31 | 0.07 | ⚠ differs |
| WHEAT WHEAT | LONG | +1.1% · 5d -1.4% ↺ fades | 53% | 32 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.4% · 5d +0.2% | 51% | 40 | 0.01 | · |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.1% | 42% | 31 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -0.0% | 45% | 31 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CORN CORN | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.4% | 50% | 32 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| Gold XAU | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -0.1% | 47% | 32 | 0.00 | · |
Why this probability
Cedi chronically fragile on cocoa/gold shortfalls; specific 18/USD break in 6mo is a moderate tail. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.