🛢 Energy & Commodities mixed · 0–6 months
A what‑if from the future

What if a once-in-a-century flood inundates the Yangtze basin?

Trade it through China demand: a Yangtze mega-flood idles industrial heartland output, so copper and AUD soften on weaker China metals demand while the CNY and China internet names wobble. Rhymes with the 2020 Yangtze floods that hit Hubei/Anhui industry and pressured base metals. Transmission runs via China being ~55% of copper demand and the marginal oil importer; the Three-Gorges tail risk is the convex add-on that would spike, not dump, hydropower-adjacent risk.

17%
our model probability
over 0–6 months
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 17% · 90% range 6–29% · 40 analogues · measured class growth 61% in 6 mo · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — growth ≈1.8868/yr → 61% in 6 mo61%
Analyst prior · editorial share 29% of the class18%
Pooled · weight 87%18%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)18%
Published17%

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 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. 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 mixed shock. A once-in-century Yangtze flood inundates Chinese industrial heartland, idling factories and threatening the Three Gorges Dam. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — China growth ▼ · Industrial demand ▼ — 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
1Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.2%
hist -6.87–+1.56% · other way +8.06% (n=11)
2Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▼ -0.8%
hist -1.92–+0.25% · other way +1.17% (n=11)
3China internet KWEBon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -3.46–+0.73% · other way -1.8% (n=8)
4Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -1.03–+0.14% · other way -4.6% (n=8)
5Aussie dollar AUD 📈 chartFX▼ -0.4%
hist -0.81–+0.13% · other way +0.26% (n=10)
6Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chartFX▼ -0.3%
hist -0.3–-0.05% · other way -0.11% (n=10)
7Platinum XPTon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▼ -0.2%
hist -0.55–+0.04% · other way +5.18% (n=11)
8Palladium XPDon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▼ -0.2%
hist -1.75–+0.53% · other way +4.6% (n=11)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
Long
For a common-man portfolio: Mixed for a typical portfolio — the move is more about rotation than direction. Favour the winners over the losers below rather than net exposure.
Also moves (not yet on Hyperliquid): Freeport (copper) -1.2% · Aussie dollar -0.4% · Chinese yuan -0.3%

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 tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 ASML bookings-miss crash 2024-10 Gold tops $2,500 for the first time on Fed rate-cut bets 2024-08 Offshore yuan hits a record low 2022-11 China fires ballistic missiles into Japan's EEZ during Taiwan drills 2022-08 Alibaba upsizes buyback to record $25 billion 2022-03 Kaisa Group offshore default 2021-12 Evergrande debt crisis - global selloff 2021-09 Didi removed from China app stores after NYSE IPO 2021-07 Bitcoin May 2021 crash 2021-05 Copper tops $10,000 a tonne for the first time since 2011 2021-04 Gold closes above $2,000/oz for the first time 2020-08 Chinese yuan breaks 7 per dollar; US names China manipulator 2019-08 Apple cuts revenue guidance on China weakness 2019-01 North Korea sixth nuclear test 2017-09 North Korea 'fire and fury' nuclear scare 2017-08 China stock-market circuit-breaker fiasco 2016-01 August 24, 2015 ETF flash crash 2015-08 China's PBOC reveals 57% jump in gold reserves after six-year silence 2015-07 Shanghai A-share bubble peak / crash begins 2015-06 Gold futures velocity-logic flash crash 2014-01 Gold all-time peak of $1,921/oz 2011-09 Egyptian revolution / Mubarak uprising 2011-01 Copper crashes to ~$1.30/lb as 2008 crisis crushes China demand 2008-12 China 4 trillion yuan stimulus 2008-11 October 27, 1997 mini-crash 1997-10 Thai baht float 1997-07 Soviet August coup attempt against Gorbachev 1991-08 Tiananmen Square crackdown 1989-06 Hong Kong Stock Exchange four-day closure after Black Monday 1987-10 Chernobyl disaster 1986-04 Silver Thursday 1980-03 Gold peaks at $850 1980-01 Iran hostage crisis / US freezes Iranian assets 1979-11 Three Mile Island partial meltdown 1979-03 1979 Iranian Revolution oil shock 1979-01 Record $19bn crypto liquidation cascade 2025-10 Fatal mud-rush halts Freeport's Grasberg, tightening copper supply 2025-09
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
XPT XPTSHORT-0.4% · 5d +1.4% ↺ fades70%29 0.34✓ matches cascade
KWEB KWEBSHORT-2.9% · 5d -2.6%65%25 0.27✓ matches cascade
FCX FCXSHORT-5.7% · 5d -2.3%63%31 0.24✓ matches cascade
XCU XCUSHORT-1.4% · 5d -1.1%62%29 0.22✓ matches cascade
High-yield credit HYGSHORT-0.6% · 5d -0.0%62%29 0.20·
Bitcoin BTCSHORT-5.4% · 5d -3.7%61%24 0.17·
BABA BABASHORT-0.7% · 5d -2.9%59%24 0.15✓ matches cascade
Gold XAULONG+1.0% · 5d +0.6%59%29 0.15·
XPD XPDSHORT-1.5% · 5d -0.9%59%29 0.14✓ matches cascade
AUD AUDSHORT-0.6% · 5d -0.3%57%29 0.11✓ matches cascade
10y yield DGS10SHORT-7bp · 5d -6bp55%40 0.09·
CNY CNYSHORT-0.1% · 5d -0.1%54%29 0.07✓ matches cascade
US dollar DXYLONG+0.1% · 5d -0.0% ↺ fades51%40 0.01·
Volatility VIXLONG+1.7% · 5d +2.2%48%32 0.00·

Why this probability

Once-in-century Yangtze flood threatening Three Gorges in a single 6mo is below base rate. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.

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.