Geopolitics mixed · Tail risk
A what‑if from the future

What if a lock failure shuts down the Kiel Canal?

A Kiel lock failure reroutes Baltic feeder traffic around Denmark - a regional shipping inconvenience, not a macro event - so the tiny sub-0.2% rates/EUR moves are correctly scaled and this barely registers beyond intra-European logistics. No real market analogue; it is too small to rhyme with energy-crisis episodes. Germany/Scandinavia/Baltics are the affected feeder lanes; the forward angle is the european_energy root slightly overstates it - Kiel is mostly dry-bulk and feeder, so even EUR/USD -0.1% may be generous.

6%
our model probability
over Tail risk
prediction markets — the market's odds
loading live odds…
Anchored to measured history 6% · 90% range 0–12% · 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 Tail risk 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…

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A catastrophic lock failure shuts the Kiel Canal, rerouting Baltic feeder traffic the long way around Denmark. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — European energy ▲ · 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.