Central Banks & Macro risk-off · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Japan's wage talks deliver a 7% inflation breakout?

A 7% Shunto print entrenches Japanese inflation and forces faster BOJ normalization than priced: the read is higher global real yields and a selloff in long-duration tech as 2y/10y/30y back up. The provided US-CPI/Jackson-Hole 2022 analogues capture the mechanism — a hawkish repricing crushed Nasdaq via the discount rate. Transmission: a normalizing BOJ pulls Japanese capital home, lifting global yields at the margin. Forward: this is the first wage-driven (not import-driven) Japanese inflation in a generation, so it is stickier and harder to fade.

28%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 28% · 90% range 16–39% · 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 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. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Shunto wage talks deliver 7% raises, entrenching above-target inflation and forcing faster BOJ normalization than markets price. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — FX carry appetite ▼ · Fed policy path ▲ · 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.