What if a Panama Canal drought chokes off LPG shipments?
Gatun Lake lows cut Panama Canal slots, rerouting US Gulf LPG and clean products via the Cape or Suez; the move is in product freight and US-Asia LPG arb, not flat crude, so the modest Brent bid here is the weakest link. Rhymes with the 2023-24 Panama draft restrictions, which spiked VLGC rates and US propane discounts but left WTI roughly flat. The current crude-heavy root map overstates flat-price impact; this is a freight/arb event, better captured by a climate-supply tilt than oil-supply risk.
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 mixed shock. Historic Gatun Lake lows slash Panama Canal slots, rerouting US Gulf LPG and product tankers. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Climate/crop supply ▲ · Oil supply risk ▲ — 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 | ▲ +1.2% hist +0.04–+0.93% · other way +0.07% (n=11) |
| 2 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.0% hist -0.94–+1.06% · other way +3.54% (n=11) |
| 3 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.7% hist -0.1–+1.16% · other way +1.28% (n=11) |
| 4 | Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.6% hist -1.54–+1.19% · other way +2.48% (n=11) |
| 5 | Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.6% hist +0.08–+0.55% · other way +2.98% (n=11) |
| 6 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.6% hist -2.62–+7.72% · other way +6.82% (n=11) |
| 7 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.5% hist -0.56–+1.92% · other way -1.24% (n=12) |
| 8 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.5% hist -0.32–+1.46% · other way +0.38% (n=12) |
| 9 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -1.42–+4.71% · other way +6.43% (n=11) |
| 10 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.1% hist -0.3–+0.05% · other way +0.61% (n=11) |
| 11 | Natural gas NGon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.1% hist -2.19–+0.98% · other way +7.41% (n=11) |
| 12 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +1bp hist -5.23–+18.76% · other way +18.5% (n=12) |
| 13 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +1bp hist -4.86–+21.77% · other way +21.4% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the measured history on NG: 9 clean on-channel analogues at 0.78 hit-rate — gas sells off on mild-weather/oversupply; a Panama-drought LPG reroute is too small to override that, so the cascade over-reaches.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +4.0% · 5d +2.1% | 72% | 34 | 0.37 | · |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +18bp · 5d +8bp | 66% | 40 | 0.31 | ✓ matches cascade |
| DAL DAL | LONG | +4.3% · 5d +0.8% | 65% | 33 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| 30y yield DGS30 | LONG | +16bp · 5d +8bp | 62% | 40 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| UAL UAL | LONG | +7.2% · 5d +1.0% | 63% | 33 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -0.2% | 64% | 33 | 0.22 | · |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d -3.1% | 61% | 32 | 0.17 | · |
| CVX CVX | LONG | +1.1% · 5d +0.7% | 58% | 40 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NG NG | SHORT | -2.1% · 5d -1.6% | 56% | 33 | 0.11 | ⚠ differs |
| CORN CORN | LONG | +0.2% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 56% | 33 | 0.10 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.3% · 5d +0.1% | 56% | 40 | 0.10 | · |
| Gold XAU | SHORT | -0.0% · 5d -0.7% | 55% | 33 | 0.08 | · |
| XOM XOM | LONG | +1.6% · 5d +0.5% | 54% | 40 | 0.07 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CL CL | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -0.8% | 53% | 33 | 0.06 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Panama drought-driven slot cuts already recurring seasonally; high base rate for partial restriction. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.