What if OPEC+ surprises markets with a deep production cut?
A surprise ~2mb/d OPEC+ cut prices a supply premium straight into Brent (more Gulf-levered than WTI), dragging fuels and energy equities up and lifting breakevens; airlines like UAL are the clean short on the fuel-cost channel. Rhymes with the Oct-2022 2mb/d cut and the surprise Apr-2023 cut that gapped Brent ~6%. Forward angle: high US shale output and soft Chinese demand mean cuts now defend price more than they spike it — fade extended rallies.
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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 (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), 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. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. OPEC+ announces a surprise deep production cut (~2m bbl/d). The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Oil supply risk ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.