What if a tanker collision closes the Strait of Malacca?
A tanker collision and spill closing Malacca forces Lombok detours on ~16M bbl/day of crude flow - the single largest oil chokepoint after Hormuz - so Brent's +5.4% and the VIX bid are warranted, this is a genuine supply-route tail. Rhymes with Hormuz war-premium episodes (2019 tanker attacks, June-2025 Israel-Iran) more than a normal blockage. China/Japan/Korea are the downstream importers; the forward angle is Lombok adds days but is navigable, so the premium is a timing/insurance spike rather than a barrels-lost shock.
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 Tail risk 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 laden tanker collision and oil spill closes Malacca lanes, forcing costly Lombok detours for Asian trade. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Inflation surprise ▲ · 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 | ▲ +5.3% hist +0.49–+5.82% · other way -3.16% (n=12) |
| 2 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +5.4% hist -0.28–+2.92% · other way -3.86% (n=12) |
| 3 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +4.5% hist -4.31–+1.95% · other way -3.53% (n=12) |
| 4 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.1% hist -1.8–-0.74% · other way -0.58% (n=12) |
| 5 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +3.1% hist -0.25–+1.69% · other way -1.0% (n=12) |
| 6 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.51–-0.63% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 7 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.7% hist -3.82–+5.32% · other way +8.76% (n=12) |
| 8 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +2.2% hist +0.68–+1.74% · other way -1.61% (n=12) |
| 9 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +2.0% hist +0.64–+1.31% · other way +0.36% (n=12) |
| 10 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.3% hist -1.94–+2.56% · other way +4.3% (n=12) |
| 11 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.4% hist -1.73–-0.1% · other way +1.53% (n=12) |
| 12 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.6% hist -2.33–+2.4% · other way +30.65% (n=12) |
| 13 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.3% hist -1.52–+1.22% · other way -2.2% (n=12) |
| 14 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.1% hist -5.09–+1.27% · other way +8.33% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade long on CL/BRENT: the -5%/-2% history rests on 5 thin analogues dominated by 2014 OPEC and 2020 price-war demand crashes — a Malacca closure is supply-side, not comparable.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOOD HOOD | LONG | +7.7% · 5d +0.5% | 75% | 15 | 0.46 | ⚠ differs |
| COIN COIN | LONG | +11.9% · 5d +3.5% | 75% | 15 | 0.45 | ⚠ differs |
| CL CL | SHORT | -4.9% · 5d -2.9% | 72% | 30 | 0.39 | ⚠ differs |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -0.8% | 74% | 36 | 0.39 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.1% | 70% | 30 | 0.39 | ✓ matches cascade |
| USDJPY USDJPY | LONG | +1.6% · 5d +0.3% | 65% | 32 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.1% · 5d -1.7% | 65% | 36 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.0% · 5d +7.6% | 64% | 35 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.8% | 65% | 36 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -1.3% · 5d -1.4% | 62% | 31 | 0.23 | ⚠ differs |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -3.2% | 66% | 30 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -2.0% · 5d -1.1% | 62% | 27 | 0.21 | ⚠ differs |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -3.2% · 5d -5.6% | 62% | 31 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -0.2% | 63% | 28 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Malacca-closing tanker collision exceedingly rare; redundant lanes; tail event, very low. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.