⚔ Geopolitics mixed · 0–6 months
A what‑if from the future

What if a strike over automation snarls the port of Los Angeles?

A West Coast automation strike into peak holiday season snarls trans-Pacific imports - a domestic goods-inflation and discretionary-retail squeeze, modest for risk assets, so the small Nasdaq -0.3% and inflation-exp +0.4% are right-sized. Rhymes with the 2014-15 West Coast slowdown that jammed LA/Long Beach for months and the 2002 lockout. The US is the importer; Asian exporters feel the order backup. The forward angle is automation is the structural fault line, so like its East Coast twin this risks a longer, more inflationary standoff than priced.

23%
our model probability
over 0–6 months
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 23% · 90% range 6–40% · 40 analogues · measured class recession 62% in 6 mo · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — recession ≈1.9335/yr → 62% in 6 mo62%
Analyst prior · editorial share 42% of the class26%
Pooled · weight 87%24%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)24%
Published23%

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.

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. West Coast dockworkers strike over terminal automation, snarling trans-Pacific imports into peak holiday season. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Growth surprise ▼ · Inflation surprise ▲ — 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
1Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -0.3%
hist -0.57–+0.08% · other way -0.56% (n=12)
2MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.3%
hist -1.46–+2.52% · other way +31.9% (n=12)
3Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon HyperliquidCrypto▼ -0.2%
model prior · unmeasured
4Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.2%
hist -5.05–+1.9% · other way -0.48% (n=12)
5Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▼ -0.2%
hist -0.28–+0.35% · other way +0.47% (n=12)
6Tech sector XLK 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.2%
hist -0.13–-0.05% · other way -0.47% (n=12)
7Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.2%
hist -4.35–+1.29% · other way +4.46% (n=12)
830y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chartRate▲ +2bp
hist -1.85–+6.73% · other way +5.4% (n=12)
910y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chartRate▲ +2bp
hist +0.03–+2.14% · other way +6.3% (n=12)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
Long
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): Tech sector -0.2% · 30y Treasury yield +2bp · 10y Treasury yield +2bp

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.

August 2022 hot CPI 2022-09 Powell's hawkish 'pain' speech at Jackson Hole 2022-08 Turkish lira record low on rate cuts 2021-11 February 2018 hot wage print triggers rate scare 2018-02 August 24, 2015 ETF flash crash 2015-08 Greece first EU/IMF bailout 2010-05 1990-91 recession onset 1990-07 Silver Thursday 1980-03 Gold peaks at $850 1980-01 1979 Iranian Revolution oil shock 1979-01 Iranian Revolution oil shock 1978-12 1976 UK sterling crisis / IMF bailout 1976-09 1973-75 recession onset 1973-11 Iranian rial slides to a new record low 2025-12 Gold tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 Israel strikes Iran — Operation Rising Lion 2025-06 H5N1 bird flu record US egg prices 2025-04 China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 Tesla shares crater on DOGE political backlash and Europe sales collapse 2025-03 TSMC slumps as DeepSeek roils AI-chip demand assumptions 2025-02 Micron's weak FQ2 guidance sparks a sharp December selloff 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 ASML bookings-miss crash 2024-10 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 Nikkei 225 record single-day rebound 2024-08 Nikkei 225 worst single-day crash since 1987 2024-08 KOSPI biggest-ever point loss triggers circuit breaker 2024-08 VIX third-highest spike on record 2024-08 Weak July 2024 jobs report triggers Sahm-rule growth scare 2024-08 Intel's Q2 earnings trigger its worst single-day crash since 1974 2024-08 Megacap AI-capex doubt selloff 2024-07 Trump 'Taiwan should pay for defense' chip selloff 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 India's Modi loses single-party majority 2024-06 Mexico's Sheinbaum landslide + supermajority scare 2024-06 Hot January CPI delays Fed-cut hopes 2024-02
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
ETH ETHSHORT-3.9% · 5d -5.2%63%31 0.19✓ matches cascade
NDX NDXSHORT-0.4% · 5d -0.9%59%34 0.13✓ matches cascade
Volatility VIXLONG+3.4% · 5d +8.7%56%34 0.12·
SOL SOLSHORT-4.7% · 5d -6.5%58%30 0.10✓ matches cascade
30y yield DGS30LONG+6bp · 5d +4bp55%38 0.10✓ matches cascade
Gold XAULONG+0.5% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades54%33 0.06⚠ differs
Bitcoin BTCLONG+0.6% · 5d -2.8% ↺ fades53%32 0.04·
High-yield credit HYGLONG+0.4% · 5d +0.3%51%33 0.02·
MSTR MSTRLONG+2.6% · 5d -1.6% ↺ fades46%33 0.00⚠ differs
XLK XLKLONG+0.0% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades49%33 0.00⚠ differs
10y yield DGS10LONG+1bp · 5d +3bp47%40 0.00✓ matches cascade
US dollar DXYLONG+0.2% · 5d +0.3%47%40 0.00·

Why this probability

ILWU automation disputes recur; full West Coast strike into peak season possible but often averted. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.

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.