Central Banks & Macro risk-on · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if cooling inflation and steady growth confirm a soft landing?

A soft core-PCE print with steady growth validates the soft landing; the highest-beta expression is crypto (SOL/ETH) and Nasdaq leading as credit spreads and VIX compress. Rhymes with the late-2023 'immaculate disinflation' melt-up that drove a furious everything-rally into year-end. Forward angle: with risk already richly priced and cuts partly in, the marginal soft-landing surprise has a smaller multiple-expansion runway than 2023 — chase beta, but tighten stops.

38%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
loading live odds…
Anchored to measured history 38% · 90% range 21–55% · 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 6–18 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. Loading the probability audit trail…

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-on shock. Core PCE surprises sharply lower with steady growth, validating a soft landing. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Growth surprise ▲ · Fed policy path ▼ · 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.