What if a pandemic mortality catastrophe breaches life reinsurers' excess-mortality covers?
A pandemic mortality-catastrophe scenario breaches life reinsurers' excess-mortality covers, forcing the cat-mortality bond market to pay out and reinsurers to recapitalize their mortality books.
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 pandemic mortality-catastrophe scenario breaches life reinsurers' excess-mortality covers, forcing the cat-mortality bond market to pay out and reinsurers to recapitalize their mortality books. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Credit spreads ▲ · Pandemic shock ▲ · Recession signal ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — 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 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -2.9% hist -7.72–+0.93% · other way +3.56% (n=12) |
| 2 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.1% hist +0.33–+2.1% · other way +1.02% (n=12) |
| 3 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.0% hist -4.86–+0.62% · other way -1.7% (n=12) |
| 4 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.7% hist +0.45–+0.94% · other way +0.3% (n=12) |
| 5 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.1% hist -7.54–+6.62% · other way +1.94% (n=11) |
| 6 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.4% hist -3.07–+0.48% · other way -0.97% (n=12) |
| 7 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -2.84–+0.36% · other way -1.3% (n=12) |
| 8 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -3.75–+0.94% · other way +11.78% (n=12) |
| 9 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.4% hist +0.12–+1.63% · other way +0.45% (n=12) |
| 10 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -0.9% model prior · unmeasured |
| 11 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +0.9% hist -4.9–+10.95% · other way -3.97% (n=12) |
| 12 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.55–+0.6% · other way +3.9% (n=11) |
| 13 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -8bp hist -19.61–+1.49% · other way +2.1% (n=12) |
| 14 | High-yield credit HYG 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.93–+0.04% · other way -0.36% (n=12) |
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 | SHORT | -19.5% · 5d -12.4% | 83% | 6 | 0.58 | ⚠ differs |
| JPM JPM | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d -1.5% | 71% | 35 | 0.37 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -1.2% | 69% | 32 | 0.36 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 30y yield DGS30 | SHORT | -14bp · 5d -6bp | 69% | 35 | 0.35 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XHB XHB | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d +0.2% ↺ fades | 68% | 31 | 0.31 | ⚠ differs |
| NDX NDX | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -1.2% ↺ fades | 65% | 34 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +2.5% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 66% | 32 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| CL CL | SHORT | -5.7% · 5d -3.4% | 66% | 32 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -18bp · 5d -8bp | 64% | 36 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -3.5% · 5d -2.4% | 62% | 32 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| DAL DAL | LONG | +0.8% · 5d -1.2% ↺ fades | 62% | 29 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KRW KRW | SHORT | -0.9% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 61% | 31 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 29 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +4.5% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 61% | 23 | 0.21 | ⚠ differs |