Central Banks & Macro mixed · 1–3 years
A what‑if from the future

What if the Swiss National Bank returns to negative rates?

Marginal risk-on nudge: an SNB return to negative rates weakens the franc and adds a sliver of carry/liquidity, barely moving the broad complex (sub-0.1% beta). Rhyme is the 2015-2022 SNB negative-rate era, when CHF was a funding currency and global risk leaned mildly positive on the extra liquidity. Transmission: the real expression is short CHF (a renewed funding leg) rather than any equity/crypto beta trade; forward angle — the move only matters as a carry-funding signal, so trade EUR/CHF and CHF-funded carry, and ignore the negligible risk-asset cascade.

19%
our model probability
over 1–3 years
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 19% · 90% range 9–28% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

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 1–3 years 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…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. The Swiss National Bank returns to negative rates, weakening the franc. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Risk appetite ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.