What if Russia and Ukraine sign a ceasefire?
Mirror of the war trades: a Ukraine ceasefire unwinds the risk premium — VIX -14, Brent down on eased supply fear, Nasdaq/S&P rally as risk-parity re-levers. The rhyme is the Jan-1991 Desert Storm open, when crude collapsed and equities ripped once tail uncertainty resolved. Transmission: sanctions relief reopens Russian energy/grain to Europe, easing breakevens, while reconstruction is a EUR-positive, EU-industrials and steel bid; forward angle — much Russian oil already reaches market via shadow flows, so the crude downside is smaller than headlines imply; the bigger move is in European gas and equity risk premia.
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-on shock. Russia and Ukraine sign a ceasefire and open sanctions-relief and reconstruction talks. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▼ · 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 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▼ -13.9% hist -9.74–-3.24% · other way +11.59% (n=8) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▲ +5.4% hist +1.52–+3.4% · other way -0.55% (n=8) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +3.9% hist +1.22–+2.84% · other way +0.13% (n=8) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▲ +3.0% hist +0.39–+2.73% · other way +1.39% (n=12) |
| 5 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.76–-0.16% · other way -6.47% (n=8) |
| 6 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +2.5% hist +0.28–+2.57% · other way +0.42% (n=8) |
| 7 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -1.9% hist -1.75–+1.08% · other way -7.04% (n=8) |
| 8 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +2.3% hist -5.78–+16.08% · other way +14.65% (n=8) |
| 9 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▲ +1.5% hist -1.79–+5.62% · other way +0.57% (n=7) |
| 10 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.9% hist -0.26–+3.04% · other way +0.92% (n=8) |
| 11 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▲ +1.3% hist -2.22–+6.36% · other way -3.99% (n=8) |
| 12 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -1.2% hist -0.75–-0.36% · other way +1.1% (n=8) |
| 13 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.4% hist -1.52–-0.16% · other way -2.7% (n=8) |
| 14 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.6% hist -0.54–+1.14% · other way -2.97% (n=8) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade long on ARM/INTC/QCOM: history's -2 to -7% is grab-bag noise (Alphabet dividend, SPX milestones, a 2026 Maduro window) with no Russia-ceasefire reconstruction channel — off-channel, ignore 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -3.1% · 5d -2.2% | 70% | 40 | 0.39 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SPX SPX | LONG | +1.3% · 5d +0.5% | 70% | 40 | 0.37 | ✓ matches cascade |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -2.4% · 5d -1.4% | 71% | 39 | 0.30 | ⚠ differs |
| LMT LMT | SHORT | -2.3% · 5d -1.8% | 67% | 40 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XOM XOM | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -1.5% | 63% | 40 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.2% | 66% | 39 | 0.23 | ⚠ differs |
| TSM TSM | LONG | +1.6% · 5d -1.2% ↺ fades | 63% | 39 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.4% | 63% | 40 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| ARM ARM | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -8.1% | 62% | 14 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +1.2% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 61% | 39 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | SHORT | -2.5% · 5d -5.8% | 60% | 40 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.2% | 59% | 39 | 0.17 | ⚠ differs |
| MRVL MRVL | LONG | +1.3% · 5d -1.1% ↺ fades | 61% | 39 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KRW KRW | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.1% | 61% | 39 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Ukraine ceasefire talks actively live mid-2026; near-term deal plausible though fragile; risk-on. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.