What if a mutated MERS coronavirus turns airborne in the Gulf?
This one is two-sided and correctly so: airborne MERS on the Arabian Peninsula threatens Gulf oil-worker camps and Hajj — Brent gains a supply-risk premium over WTI even as global mobility/demand softens, with gold bid. Rhymes with 2020's collision of COVID demand-destruction and the Saudi-Russia supply war. The Brent-over-WTI split (oil_supply_risk 0.4 vs. demand-side pandemic) is the smart, distinctive call — trade the Brent-WTI spread wider; roots are sensible.
how we built this number — every step
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.
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Mutated MERS coronavirus gains airborne efficiency on the Arabian Peninsula, threatening Gulf oil-worker camps and Hajj travel. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Oil supply risk ▲ · Pandemic shock ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — 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.
| Market | Class | Projected move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.4% hist +0.8–+1.73% · other way +1.03% (n=12) |
| 2 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.4% hist -4.19–+1.79% · other way +3.12% (n=12) |
| 3 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.6% hist -4.67–+1.46% · other way +2.16% (n=12) |
| 4 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -1.6% hist -8.95–+1.21% · other way +3.74% (n=12) |
| 5 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -1.2% model prior · unmeasured |
| 6 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -2.42–+0.27% · other way -1.26% (n=12) |
| 7 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -1.89–+2.28% · other way +13.54% (n=12) |
| 8 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +1.0% hist -3.11–+9.69% · other way -0.89% (n=12) |
| 9 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.9% hist -3.38–+0.71% · other way +4.28% (n=12) |
| 10 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.54–-0.2% · other way +1.21% (n=12) |
| 11 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.9% hist -0.27–+1.84% · other way +1.48% (n=12) |
| 12 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.18–+0.04% · other way -0.49% (n=12) |
| 13 | USD/JPY USDJPYon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.66–+0.82% · other way +0.01% (n=12) |
| 14 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.6% hist -4.81–+1.37% · other way +5.5% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade: COIN/MSTR 'up' is BTC-bull regime noise (Rising Lion +63%), and BRENT's bearish history reflects OPEC share-wars, not a Gulf supply threat — wrong shock, so the cascade's oil-up call holds.
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.
| Asset | History says | Abnormal (20d · 5d) | Hit | n | Confidence | vs cascade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL CL | SHORT | -7.0% · 5d -4.0% | 70% | 34 | 0.37 | ✓ matches cascade |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -4.5% · 5d -2.2% | 67% | 31 | 0.32 | ⚠ differs |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -1.5% | 67% | 39 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| HOOD HOOD | LONG | +2.0% · 5d -2.9% ↺ fades | 65% | 16 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.6% · 5d -4.0% | 67% | 39 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d -0.1% | 65% | 39 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d -1.4% | 61% | 35 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.3% | 61% | 31 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -2.7% · 5d -2.8% | 61% | 25 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -4.1% · 5d -4.6% | 60% | 29 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +8.6% · 5d +4.8% | 58% | 38 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| COIN COIN | LONG | +3.8% · 5d +1.1% | 59% | 16 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
| USDJPY USDJPY | LONG | +1.1% · 5d +0.2% | 58% | 36 | 0.15 | ⚠ differs |
| ARM ARM | SHORT | -4.6% · 5d -7.0% | 62% | 7 | 0.15 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Airborne MERS mutation is rare; sporadic zoonotic cases, no efficient transmission historically. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.