What if a winter storm freezes Texas's power grid again?
A severe winter storm (echoing Uri 2021) freezes Texas gas and power infrastructure, causing blackouts, spot-price spikes and utility defaults the Fed treats as an acute extreme-weather 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 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. 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 mixed shock. A severe winter storm (echoing Uri 2021) freezes Texas gas and power infrastructure, causing blackouts, spot-price spikes and utility defaults the Fed treats as an acute extreme-weather shock. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Natural gas ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ · Credit spreads ▲ · Inflation surprise ▲ — 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 | Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.8% hist +0.26–+0.57% · other way -0.63% (n=12) |
| 2 | Natural gas NGon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.8% hist -4.49–+1.69% · other way +14.47% (n=12) |
| 3 | Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.7% hist -0.18–+1.88% · other way -0.49% (n=12) |
| 4 | High-yield credit HYG 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.46–+0.05% · other way -0.36% (n=12) |
| 5 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.39–+0.55% · other way +0.43% (n=12) |
| 6 | Financials XLF 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.5–+0.12% · other way +0.44% (n=12) |
| 7 | EUR/USD EURUSDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.55–+0.15% · other way -1.54% (n=12) |
| 8 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.15–+0.06% · other way +20.8% (n=12) |
| 9 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +2bp hist +0.41–+0.94% · other way +4.5% (n=12) |
| 10 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.1% hist -0.32–+0.06% · other way -0.26% (n=12) |
| 11 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +2bp hist +0.22–+1.0% · other way +6.2% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CORN CORN | LONG | +1.4% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades | 68% | 36 | 0.31 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NG NG | SHORT | -4.4% · 5d -3.4% | 63% | 36 | 0.23 | ⚠ differs |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +4.5% · 5d +5.0% | 61% | 36 | 0.18 | · |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.0% | 60% | 35 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 30y yield DGS30 | SHORT | 0bp · 5d 0bp | 57% | 40 | 0.14 | ⚠ differs |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.5% · 5d +0.1% | 55% | 40 | 0.09 | · |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.3% | 55% | 36 | 0.08 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | 0bp · 5d -2bp | 53% | 40 | 0.06 | ⚠ differs |
| EURUSD EURUSD | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d +0.0% ↺ fades | 51% | 35 | 0.02 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +0.6% · 5d -0.8% ↺ fades | 51% | 36 | 0.01 | ⚠ differs |
| WHEAT WHEAT | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -1.4% ↺ fades | 47% | 36 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -2.1% ↺ fades | 45% | 36 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| Gold XAU | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -0.2% | 49% | 36 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | LONG | +2.0% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades | 42% | 25 | 0.00 | · |