What if sticky inflation forces surprise back-to-back RBA hikes?
Back-to-back emergency RBA hikes after a dovish hold whipsaw AUD and front-end rates: the read is higher reals and a risk-off duration hit, with AUD spiking and rate-sensitive tech sold. Rhymes with the 2010-11 RBA tightening cycle and the broader 2022 hawkish-surprise complex that punished long-duration equities. Australia exports iron ore/LNG to China; sticky domestic inflation forces the RBA's hand independent of the terms-of-trade. Forward: a housing-leveraged economy makes each surprise hike more destabilizing than the Fed's.
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. After a dovish hold, sticky Australian inflation forces back-to-back emergency RBA hikes, whipsawing AUD and rates traders. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Fed policy path ▲ · Inflation surprise ▲ — 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 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.8% hist -1.71–-0.25% · other way -1.72% (n=12) |
| 2 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -1.04–-0.23% · other way -1.29% (n=12) |
| 3 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.1% hist -1.5–-0.02% · other way -1.37% (n=12) |
| 4 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.1% hist -8.23–+2.52% · other way +18.86% (n=8) |
| 5 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.1% hist -5.95–+1.53% · other way -1.39% (n=9) |
| 6 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.54–+0.07% · other way +0.42% (n=11) |
| 7 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.9% hist -2.75–+0.64% · other way +1.84% (n=8) |
| 8 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -0.9% model prior · unmeasured |
| 9 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +8bp hist -1.91–+16.69% · other way +18.3% (n=12) |
| 10 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +7bp hist -2.92–+17.64% · other way +18.0% (n=12) |
| 11 | US dollar (DXY) DXYon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | FX | ▲ +0.6% hist -0.03–+0.94% · other way +0.12% (n=12) |
| 12 | 2y Treasury yield DGS2 | Rate | ▲ +7bp model prior · unmeasured |
| 13 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +0.6% hist -0.86–+0.63% · other way -1.84% (n=12) |
| 14 | Coinbase COINon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -1.01–+0.05% · other way +7.32% (n=5) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade long on VIX: its -12.5% history is a thin, conflicting 8-window CPI sample (+36% vs -24%); emergency back-to-back RBA hikes whipsawing rates traders spike vol, not suppress it.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARM ARM | SHORT | -10.7% · 5d -10.3% | 91% | 11 | 0.62 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -4.9% · 5d -3.3% | 71% | 39 | 0.35 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.2% | 67% | 39 | 0.33 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TSM TSM | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -1.5% | 64% | 39 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -2.4% | 62% | 39 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLK XLK | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.9% | 64% | 39 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -4.6% · 5d -5.3% | 62% | 39 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| USDJPY USDJPY | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 60% | 39 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -0.4% ↺ fades | 60% | 39 | 0.18 | ⚠ differs |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -5.0% · 5d -5.1% | 60% | 38 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 30y yield DGS30 | LONG | +12bp · 5d +2bp | 60% | 40 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d +0.2% ↺ fades | 60% | 39 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.6% · 5d +0.1% | 57% | 40 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |
| GBPUSD GBPUSD | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d +0.2% ↺ fades | 58% | 39 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
RBA hiking again possible on sticky inflation, but back-to-back emergency hikes is a stretch. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.