What if an algorithmic loop triggers a Treasury-futures flash crash?
An algo feedback loop flash-crashing Treasury futures briefly reprices global rates before snapping back — a microstructure liquidity event that spikes vol and forces risk-parity deleveraging intraday. This is the October-2014 Treasury flash rally (10y moved ~37bp in minutes) and the 2010 equity flash crash in rates form. Skeptic's note: it round-trips fast — the durable trade is owning vol/gamma into thin liquidity windows, not chasing the directional spike that reverses.
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 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. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. An algorithmic feedback loop triggers a multi-point flash crash in Treasury futures, momentarily repricing global rates before snapping back. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Volatility (VIX) ▲ · Financial conditions ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.