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

What if simultaneous droughts hit US, Black Sea, and South American breadbaskets?

Simultaneous drought across US Plains, Black Sea and South American breadbaskets cuts global grain output, spiking wheat, corn and soy in the multi-breadbasket failure NGFS and the IMF flag.

20%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 20% · 90% range 9–32% · 40 analogues · measured class agriculture 94% in 18 mo · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — agriculture ≈1.9132/yr → 94% in 18 mo94%
Analyst prior · editorial share 23% of the class22%
Pooled · weight 87%21%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)21%
Published20%

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. Simultaneous drought across US Plains, Black Sea and South American breadbaskets cuts global grain output, spiking wheat, corn and soy in the multi-breadbasket failure NGFS and the IMF flag. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Corn ▲ · Wheat ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ · 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
1Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +1.4%
hist -0.57–+0.78% · other way -5.55% (n=9)
2Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +1.3%
hist -2.18–+1.62% · other way +0.75% (n=9)
3Turkish lira TRY 📈 chartFX▼ -0.2%
hist -0.22–+0.07% · other way +1.31% (n=8)
4Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.2%
hist -0.31–+0.47% · other way -1.88% (n=9)
5Natural gas NGon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.2%
hist -3.16–+0.68% · other way +0.52% (n=9)
6Indian rupee INR 📈 chartFX▼ -0.2%
hist -0.13–-0.06% · other way +0.47% (n=8)
7Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.2%
hist -1.61–+0.47% · other way +0.21% (n=10)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
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): Turkish lira -0.2% · Indian rupee -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.

H5N1 bird flu record US egg prices 2025-04 IPBES warns ~1 million species face extinction 2019-05 Crude oil all-time high 2008-07 Chernobyl disaster 1986-04 Silver Thursday 1980-03 Gold peaks at $850 1980-01 Volcker Saturday Night Special 1979-10 1979 Iranian Revolution oil shock 1979-01 1974 sugar price spike to record 65+ cents 1974-11 Nixon Shock 1971-08 Iranian rial slides to a new record low 2025-12 Gold tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 Fatal mud-rush halts Freeport's Grasberg, tightening copper supply 2025-09 Trump's 50% copper tariff sends Comex copper to a record 2025-07 Platinum hits an 11-year high on Chinese jewelry demand and deficit 2025-06 Anglo American demerges Valterra Platinum 2025-06 US egg prices hit record on persistent H5N1 2025-03 Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 USDA five-pronged plan to combat avian flu and egg prices 2025-02 DRC suspends cobalt exports 2025-02 Cocoa sets fresh all-time high above $12,000 2024-12 Nasdaq Composite first close above 20000 2024-12 Henry Hub natural gas falls to an all-time inflation-adjusted low on record output 2024-11 Palladium jumps after US pushes G7 sanctions on Russian metal 2024-10 Gold tops $2,500 for the first time on Fed rate-cut bets 2024-08 India slashes gold import duty from 15% to 6% in 2024 budget 2024-07 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 BHP abandons $49bn takeover bid for Anglo American 2024-05 Comex copper hits record on New York short squeeze 2024-05 Cocoa breaches $10,000/ton on West African crop failure 2024-04 Hot January CPI delays Fed-cut hopes 2024-02 Brazil orange-fruit prices hit record 2023-11 Panama Supreme Court voids Cobre Panama copper concession 2023-11 Newmont completes $15bn Newcrest takeover to lead global gold 2023-11 RTX takes $3B charge on Pratt & Whitney GTF engine flaw 2023-09 Niger coup d'etat 2023-07 India bans non-basmati white rice exports 2023-07 Russia terminates the Black Sea Grain Initiative 2023-07 PJM grid emergency during Winter Storm Elliott 2022-12
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
NG NGSHORT-2.8% · 5d -4.2%69%33 0.36⚠ differs
WHEAT WHEATSHORT-1.0% · 5d -0.5%64%33 0.25⚠ differs
Volatility VIXLONG+3.5% · 5d +0.8%61%33 0.19·
NVDA NVDASHORT-1.4% · 5d -4.5%61%33 0.17✓ matches cascade
Gold XAULONG+0.6% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades58%33 0.14·
10y yield DGS10SHORT0bp · 5d +1bp ↺ fades56%40 0.12·
CORN CORNSHORT-2.7% · 5d -2.2%56%33 0.11⚠ differs
SMH SMHLONG+0.6% · 5d -1.4% ↺ fades56%33 0.10⚠ differs
US dollar DXYSHORT-0.1% · 5d +0.0% ↺ fades54%40 0.07·
Bitcoin BTCLONG+3.3% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades53%32 0.05·
TRY TRYLONG+0.2% · 5d +1.2%44%33 0.00⚠ differs
INR INRLONG+0.0% · 5d +0.3%47%33 0.00⚠ differs
High-yield credit HYGLONG+0.3% · 5d +0.2%50%33 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.