What if a demand air-pocket and full US storage push WTI prices negative again?
A demand air-pocket meets full US storage in a price war, forcing prompt WTI negative again as in April 2020 and inflicting losses on long-only commodity funds and clearing members.
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 demand air-pocket meets full US storage in a price war, forcing prompt WTI negative again as in April 2020 and inflicting losses on long-only commodity funds and clearing members. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Oil demand ▼ · 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 | ▼ -3.0% hist -2.26–-0.83% · other way -1.75% (n=11) |
| 2 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -2.7% hist -2.11–-0.1% · other way -1.54% (n=11) |
| 3 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.9% hist -1.52–-0.38% · other way +0.3% (n=11) |
| 4 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.6% hist -1.76–+5.88% · other way +18.31% (n=11) |
| 5 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.4% hist -1.15–-0.36% · other way -0.39% (n=12) |
| 6 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -0.96–-0.3% · other way +0.09% (n=12) |
| 7 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.4% hist -0.89–+3.85% · other way +11.2% (n=11) |
| 8 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.6% hist -0.21–+1.51% · other way -1.82% (n=11) |
| 9 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -5bp hist -7.14–+0.2% · other way +24.4% (n=12) |
| 10 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.3% hist -4.39–+4.74% · other way +3.67% (n=8) |
| 11 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -4bp hist -9.04–+0.56% · other way +31.1% (n=12) |
| 12 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -0.3% model prior · unmeasured |
| 13 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.85–+0.38% · other way +3.79% (n=8) |
| 14 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.26–+0.38% · other way +0.91% (n=11) |
Probable recommendation
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 36 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOOD HOOD | LONG | +13.3% · 5d +2.6% | 78% | 7 | 0.49 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -6bp · 5d +1bp ↺ fades | 68% | 36 | 0.31 | ✓ matches cascade |
| USDJPY USDJPY | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.4% | 69% | 28 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.1% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 62% | 28 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| EURUSD EURUSD | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d +-0.0% | 61% | 27 | 0.21 | ⚠ differs |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d +0.3% ↺ fades | 59% | 28 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +0.5% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 59% | 28 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
| NDX NDX | LONG | +0.6% · 5d -0.8% ↺ fades | 57% | 31 | 0.11 | ⚠ differs |
| CVX CVX | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d +0.6% ↺ fades | 55% | 36 | 0.09 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 30y yield DGS30 | SHORT | -4bp · 5d +1bp ↺ fades | 55% | 36 | 0.09 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XHB XHB | LONG | +0.5% · 5d -1.8% ↺ fades | 55% | 27 | 0.09 | ✓ matches cascade |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -1.5% | 53% | 26 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
| DAL DAL | LONG | +2.9% · 5d +1.2% | 53% | 26 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.2% · 5d +0.1% | 53% | 36 | 0.05 | ⚠ differs |