🛢 Energy & Commodities risk-off · 3–10 years
A what‑if from the future

What if worsening wildfire-smoke seasons drive a sustained rise in respiratory insurance claims?

Worsening wildfire-smoke seasons drive a sustained rise in respiratory health- and life-insurance claims across western North America, a slow casualty-side climate channel insurers underprice.

7%
our model probability
over 3–10 years
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 7% · 90% range 1–13% · 40 analogues · measured class pandemic 100% in 10 yr · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — pandemic ≈0.8371/yr → 100% in 10 yr100%
Analyst prior · editorial share 5% of the class5%
Pooled · weight 87%7%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)7%
Published7%

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 3–10 years 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.

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Worsening wildfire-smoke seasons drive a sustained rise in respiratory health- and life-insurance claims across western North America, a slow casualty-side climate channel insurers underprice. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Climate/crop supply ▲ · Credit spreads ▲ · Pandemic shock ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — 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.

MarketClassProjected move
1WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▼ -0.8%
hist -9.09–+1.4% · other way +2.77% (n=11)
2MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -1.63–+0.38% · other way +14.34% (n=11)
3Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.6%
hist -0.85–+0.69% · other way -0.86% (n=11)
4Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.6%
hist -0.71–+0.66% · other way +2.29% (n=11)
5Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.5%
hist -7.73–+4.94% · other way +1.79% (n=9)
6Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -3.97–+0.59% · other way -0.42% (n=11)
7Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.4%
hist -2.74–+0.82% · other way +4.89% (n=9)
8Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon HyperliquidCrypto▼ -0.4%
model prior · unmeasured
9Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▲ +0.4%
hist -0.06–+0.7% · other way +0.98% (n=11)
10Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.3%
hist -3.14–+0.79% · other way +4.84% (n=9)
11Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartVol▲ +0.3%
hist -5.8–+12.69% · other way -4.33% (n=11)
12United Airlines UAL 📈 chartEquity▲ +0.5%
hist -1.77–+0.91% · other way +2.32% (n=11)
13Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -0.3%
hist -0.4–+0.83% · other way +0.6% (n=11)
14ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.4%
hist -2.67–+0.73% · other way +0.18% (n=12)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
Cash / hedgeRaise cash and hold the long hedges above; this scenario is net risk-off.
For a common-man portfolio: A typical stock-heavy portfolio is at risk. Consider trimming equities, raising cash, and a small gold hedge.
Also moves (not yet on Hyperliquid): United Airlines +0.5% · ExxonMobil -0.4% · High-yield credit -0.3% · Chevron -0.4% · Delta +0.4% · Financials -0.2%

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.

Gold closes above $2,000/oz for the first time 2020-08 Chernobyl disaster 1986-04 Gold tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 H5N1 bird flu record US egg prices 2025-04 Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 Gold tops $2,500 for the first time on Fed rate-cut bets 2024-08 First Republic Bank seized and sold to JPMorgan 2023-05 Regional-bank panic deepens after Signature seizure 2023-03 Offshore yuan hits a record low 2022-11 Tin hits nominal record on LME above $48,000/t 2022-03 Kaisa Group offshore default 2021-12 Omicron variant Black Friday selloff 2021-11 Vietnam suspends new rice export contracts 2020-03 COVID-19 fourth circuit breaker 2020-03 Saudi-Russia oil price war 2020-03 S&P 500 ends longest bull market with record high before COVID 2020-02 IPBES warns ~1 million species face extinction 2019-05 China's first African Swine Fever outbreak confirmed 2018-08 North Korea sixth nuclear test 2017-09 North Korea 'fire and fury' nuclear scare 2017-08 HYG record outflows in 2014 high-yield rout 2014-10 Ebola US-case market scare 2014-10 Mt. Gox collapse 2014-02 Mt. Gox halts withdrawals 2014-02 Gold futures velocity-logic flash crash 2014-01 Cyprus deposit bail-in 2013-03 Spain requests EUR100bn bank bailout 2012-06 Bankia nationalised in Spain's banking crisis 2012-05 Gold all-time peak of $1,921/oz 2011-09 Portugal requests EU-IMF bailout 2011-04 Egyptian revolution / Mubarak uprising 2011-01 Greece first EU/IMF bailout 2010-05 Greece requests EU/IMF bailout 2010-04 Anglo Irish Bank nationalisation 2009-01 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorship 2008-09 IndyMac Bank seized by the Office of Thrift Supervision 2008-07 2008 global rice / food price crisis peak 2008-04 2008 global rice crisis: Thai benchmark tops $1,000/ton 2008-04 Northern Rock bank run 2007-09 American Home Mortgage bankruptcy 2007-08
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
CL CLSHORT-7.4% · 5d -3.7%71%39 0.37✓ matches cascade
XLE XLESHORT-3.2% · 5d -1.9%70%39 0.37✓ matches cascade
ETH ETHSHORT-2.4% · 5d -3.8%66%17 0.27✓ matches cascade
XLF XLFSHORT-1.5% · 5d -0.8%65%39 0.26✓ matches cascade
30y yield DGS30SHORT-8bp · 5d -1bp65%40 0.25✓ matches cascade
Bitcoin BTCSHORT-2.7% · 5d -3.9%63%21 0.24✓ matches cascade
NDX NDXLONG+0.9% · 5d -0.8% ↺ fades62%40 0.20⚠ differs
XOM XOMSHORT-2.3% · 5d -1.3%60%40 0.19✓ matches cascade
SOL SOLSHORT-7.7% · 5d -8.1%61%11 0.17✓ matches cascade
COIN COINSHORT-10.4% · 5d -0.9%60%10 0.16✓ matches cascade
XLK XLKLONG+0.8% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades59%39 0.16⚠ differs
UAL UALSHORT-1.9% · 5d -2.2%58%39 0.15⚠ differs
CVX CVXSHORT-1.4% · 5d -0.7%57%40 0.13✓ matches cascade
High-yield credit HYGSHORT-0.3% · 5d +0.0% ↺ fades57%39 0.12✓ matches cascade

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Crowd odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-07-03.