What if oil goes negative again and clearing houses handle sub-zero prices?
A repeat of negative WTI forces a clearing house to handle sub-zero prices, inflicting unexpected losses and disputed margin on commodity NBFIs as in April 2020.
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 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. 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 repeat of negative WTI forces a clearing house to handle sub-zero prices, inflicting unexpected losses and disputed margin on commodity NBFIs as in April 2020. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Financial conditions ▲ · Oil supply risk ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ · Risk-parity deleveraging ▲ — 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 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.8% hist -3.25–+1.2% · other way -3.03% (n=12) |
| 2 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.5% hist -3.76–+1.44% · other way -2.43% (n=12) |
| 3 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.64–-0.24% · other way +0.13% (n=12) |
| 4 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.1% hist -1.11–+0.93% · other way -1.28% (n=12) |
| 5 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.8% hist -2.39–+0.85% · other way -5.05% (n=11) |
| 6 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.91–+2.58% · other way +31.52% (n=12) |
| 7 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.7% hist -5.83–+1.38% · other way +5.06% (n=11) |
| 8 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -0.6% model prior · unmeasured |
| 9 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.52–+0.27% · other way +0.32% (n=12) |
| 10 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -2.55–+3.83% · other way +11.36% (n=12) |
| 11 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.8% hist -0.26–+0.57% · other way -2.13% (n=12) |
| 12 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.7% hist -0.58–+0.79% · other way -0.31% (n=12) |
| 13 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.33–+3.61% · other way +7.52% (n=12) |
| 14 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.5% hist -6.65–+1.78% · other way +7.89% (n=11) |
Probable recommendation
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 | +9.1% · 5d +4.8% | 75% | 15 | 0.42 | ⚠ differs |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -3.4% · 5d -1.5% | 70% | 38 | 0.34 | ⚠ differs |
| CL CL | SHORT | -3.8% · 5d -1.8% | 68% | 38 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.1% | 68% | 38 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| DAL DAL | LONG | +3.5% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 64% | 38 | 0.26 | ⚠ differs |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -4.9% · 5d -3.6% | 65% | 20 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -5.8% · 5d -4.2% | 63% | 24 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -4.3% | 61% | 38 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +2.5% · 5d -1.7% ↺ fades | 60% | 34 | 0.17 | ⚠ differs |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -1.5% · 5d -1.4% | 59% | 38 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.6% · 5d +0.2% | 58% | 40 | 0.15 | · |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.9% · 5d +4.0% | 56% | 38 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -1.1% | 57% | 38 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +1bp · 5d +4bp | 57% | 40 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |