🏛 Central Banks & Macro risk-off · 1–3 years
A what‑if from the future

What if Brent well below Iraq's fiscal breakeven strains public wages and revives political risk?

Brent well below Iraq's high fiscal breakeven blows out the budget of a near-mono-product economy, straining public-sector wages and reviving political and payment risk.

10%
our model probability
over 1–3 years
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 10% · 90% range 1–20% · 40 analogues · measured class oil_glut 84% in 3 yr · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — oil_glut ≈0.6142/yr → 84% in 3 yr84%
Analyst prior · editorial share 11% of the class9%
Pooled · weight 87%10%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)10%
Published10%

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 1–3 years 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 risk-off shock. Brent well below Iraq's high fiscal breakeven blows out the budget of a near-mono-product economy, straining public-sector wages and reviving political and payment risk. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — EM currencies ▼ · Credit spreads ▲ · Geopolitical risk ▲ · Oil demand ▼ — 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
1Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartVol▲ +3.9%
hist +0.14–+3.01% · other way -11.24% (n=11)
2Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -1.4%
hist -0.94–-0.32% · other way +0.63% (n=11)
3S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -0.9%
hist -0.53–+0.37% · other way -2.31% (n=12)
4Tech sector XLK 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.0%
hist -0.72–+0.17% · other way +0.64% (n=11)
5High-yield credit HYG 📈 chartRate▼ -0.7%
hist -0.52–-0.03% · other way -0.31% (n=11)
6MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.7%
hist -1.79–+4.93% · other way +14.68% (n=11)
7Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -0.44–+0.05% · other way +2.25% (n=11)
8Financials XLF 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.4%
hist -0.95–+0.13% · other way +1.41% (n=11)
9Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.4%
hist -0.34–+1.51% · other way -1.95% (n=11)
10Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.4%
hist -0.99–+1.45% · other way +4.56% (n=8)
11Turkish lira TRY 📈 chartFX▼ -0.3%
hist -0.52–+0.02% · other way +0.39% (n=11)
12Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.4%
hist -2.22–+3.87% · other way -1.63% (n=8)
13JPMorgan JPM 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.3%
hist -1.77–+0.41% · other way +3.61% (n=11)
14Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -0.39–+0.04% · other way -0.7% (n=11)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
Cash / hedgeRaise cash and hold the long hedges above; this scenario is net risk-off.
For a common-man portfolio: A typical stock-heavy portfolio is at risk. Consider trimming equities, raising cash, and a small gold hedge.
Also moves (not yet on Hyperliquid): Tech sector -1.0% · High-yield credit -0.7% · Financials -0.4% · Turkish lira -0.3% · JPMorgan -0.3% · Indian rupee -0.3%

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.

WTI crude futures settle negative as demand collapses 2020-04 Oil collapses from $147 to the $30s as the GFC craters demand 2008-12 Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 Henry Hub natural gas hits a 25-year low amid record US production 2024-11 Waha hub natural gas prices crash to record negative on Permian glut 2024-08 Niger coup d'etat 2023-07 Saudi-Russia oil price war 2020-03 North Korea sixth nuclear test 2017-09 North Korea 'fire and fury' nuclear scare 2017-08 Egyptian revolution / Mubarak uprising 2011-01 Greece first EU/IMF bailout 2010-05 Northern Rock bank run 2007-09 Soviet August coup attempt against Gorbachev 1991-08 1986 oil price collapse 1986-02 Gold peaks at $850 1980-01 Iran hostage crisis / US freezes Iranian assets 1979-11 Gold tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 Israel strikes Iran — Operation Rising Lion 2025-06 China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 October 2024 Iranian ballistic-missile attack on Israel 2024-10 Gold tops $2,500 for the first time on Fed rate-cut bets 2024-08 Gabon coup d'etat 2023-08 Wagner Group mutiny against the Kremlin 2023-06 First Republic Bank seized and sold to JPMorgan 2023-05 Regional-bank panic deepens after Signature seizure 2023-03 PJM grid emergency during Winter Storm Elliott 2022-12 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage 2022-09 Germany agrees Uniper bailout 2022-07 Tin hits nominal record on LME above $48,000/t 2022-03 Burkina Faso coup d'etat 2022-01 Kaisa Group offshore default 2021-12 Texas grid failure during Winter Storm Uri 2021-02 Myanmar military coup 2021-02 Mali coup d'etat 2020-08 Gold closes above $2,000/oz for the first time 2020-08 Norilsk Nickel Arctic diesel spill 2020-05 Chinese yuan breaks 7 per dollar; US names China manipulator 2019-08 Bitcoin Cash hash war capitulation 2018-11 China rout & circuit-breaker / yuan slide 2016-01 China-led global 'Black Monday' rout 2015-08
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
RTX RTXSHORT-2.3% · 5d -1.1%61%40 0.22⚠ differs
SPX SPXLONG+0.7% · 5d -0.0% ↺ fades61%40 0.21⚠ differs
MSTR MSTRLONG+4.7% · 5d -3.0% ↺ fades63%36 0.21⚠ differs
JPM JPMSHORT-1.4% · 5d -1.1%62%38 0.21✓ matches cascade
XLF XLFSHORT-0.7% · 5d -0.4%60%36 0.18✓ matches cascade
Gold XAULONG+1.2% · 5d +0.0%60%36 0.17✓ matches cascade
QCOM QCOMSHORT-2.2% · 5d -1.9%62%36 0.17✓ matches cascade
LMT LMTSHORT-0.4% · 5d -1.0%59%40 0.15⚠ differs
MU MULONG+2.8% · 5d -2.4% ↺ fades59%38 0.15⚠ differs
NOC NOCSHORT-1.3% · 5d -0.9%58%38 0.14⚠ differs
COIN COINLONG+6.8% · 5d +1.5%57%19 0.12⚠ differs
CNY CNYSHORT-0.2% · 5d -0.1%56%36 0.12✓ matches cascade
XLK XLKLONG+0.6% · 5d -0.4% ↺ fades56%36 0.10⚠ differs
TRY TRYSHORT-0.3% · 5d +0.9% ↺ fades56%36 0.08✓ matches cascade

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.