What if a dockworker strike shuts every US East Coast port?
A full East/Gulf Coast ILA shutdown is a domestic supply/inflation shock - empty shelves and a goods-CPI bump - more than a risk asset event, so the muted Nasdaq -0.3% and inflation-expectations +0.5% are correctly weighted. Rhymes with the brief Oct-2024 ILA strike (three days, quickly settled) and the 2002 West Coast lockout that cost ~$1bn/day. The US is the importer; partners (EU/Asia exporters) feel demand backup. The forward angle is automation is the unresolved 2024 sticking point, so a strike here risks being longer and more inflationary than the last.
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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 mixed shock. A prolonged ILA dockworker strike shuts every East and Gulf Coast container port, paralyzing US import flows. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Growth surprise ▼ · Inflation surprise ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.