What if a Middle East war forces a multitrillion-dollar US war budget?
A multitrillion war supplemental fuses two shocks: emergency Treasury supply (real yields up) and a Gulf oil-supply premium (Brent leads WTI higher), with equities selling on the vol spike. Rhymes with the 1990-91 Gulf War oil/yield combo and the 2022 Ukraine-invasion energy-and-rates shock. The transmission is the Strait of Hormuz for oil and dealer absorption for yields; the forward twist is that US shale and SPR capacity cap the oil upside more than in 1990, so the durable damage is likely more in rates/term-premium than in a sustained crude spike.
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 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.
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. A widening Middle East war forces a genuinely multitrillion-dollar US supplemental, triggering emergency Treasury issuance and a sharp yield spike. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Oil supply risk ▲ · Real yields ▲ — 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 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +13.9% hist +2.56–+10.16% · other way -0.36% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -6.3% hist -3.03–-1.29% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -5.1% hist -2.93–-1.56% · other way -0.15% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.4% hist -2.27–-1.21% · other way +1.22% (n=12) |
| 5 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +3.6% hist -0.47–+2.32% · other way -3.03% (n=12) |
| 6 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.1% hist -3.6–+3.12% · other way +31.53% (n=12) |
| 7 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.9% hist -4.68–+1.75% · other way -2.56% (n=12) |
| 8 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.0% hist -1.97–-0.93% · other way +1.95% (n=12) |
| 9 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.9% hist -2.32–+0.78% · other way -3.0% (n=12) |
| 10 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +2.1% hist -0.08–+1.26% · other way -1.36% (n=12) |
| 11 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.8% hist -6.7–+1.42% · other way +7.71% (n=12) |
| 12 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.1% hist -3.08–+0.04% · other way +3.19% (n=12) |
| 13 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.8% hist -2.31–-0.11% · other way -0.61% (n=12) |
| 14 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.8% hist -1.47–+0.86% · other way +0.91% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the measured history on CL/BRENT: 9 clean on-channel analogues at 0.87 hit-rate show supply shocks fade on demand-destruction/OPEC response — the cascade's reflexive war-spike LONG over-reaches versus deep oil history.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COIN COIN | LONG | +12.0% · 5d +3.5% | 77% | 12 | 0.47 | ⚠ differs |
| HOOD HOOD | LONG | +8.2% · 5d +0.3% | 77% | 12 | 0.46 | ⚠ differs |
| CL CL | SHORT | -4.9% · 5d -2.6% | 70% | 25 | 0.36 | ⚠ differs |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.1% | 69% | 25 | 0.36 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.9% | 72% | 32 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -4.8% | 70% | 32 | 0.31 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d -3.4% | 70% | 25 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.6% · 5d -2.3% | 68% | 36 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.6% · 5d +4.5% | 66% | 29 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.3% · 5d -0.8% | 69% | 36 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -4.8% | 62% | 26 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -4.6% · 5d -3.9% | 65% | 17 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +1.8% · 5d -5.2% ↺ fades | 65% | 12 | 0.19 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 22 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Multitrillion war supplemental in 6mo requires major ground war; conflict elevated but bounded. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.