What if ISIS-K mounts a sustained offensive in Afghanistan?
An ISIS-K offensive against the Taliban is a contained regional-security shock with no commodity or financial channel -- the generic VIX-up/Nasdaq-down cascade is the right shape but small. Rhymes with the 2021 Kabul-airport bombing and broader 2014-2015 ISIS surge, which produced only fleeting global risk blips. Transmission: spillover risk to Central Asian neighbors (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan) and Pakistan, plus refugee flows -- not markets. Forward: no tradable asset is directly exposed; treat as headline noise unless it pulls in a nuclear-armed Pakistan.
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 1–3 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.
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. ISIS-K mounts a sustained offensive against the Taliban, destabilizing Afghanistan and threatening Central Asian neighbors. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ — 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 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +6.3% hist +0.5–+7.2% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -2.2% hist -1.33–-0.51% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.6% hist -0.97–-0.13% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.2% hist -0.67–-0.38% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 5 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -0.75–+0.35% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 6 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.7% hist -0.26–+1.9% · other way -0.6% (n=12) |
| 7 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.79–+3.12% · other way +26.92% (n=12) |
| 8 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.6% hist -2.67–+0.63% · other way +0.89% (n=12) |
| 9 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.06–-0.01% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 10 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -1.41–+0.1% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 11 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -1.32–+4.06% · other way +0.88% (n=12) |
| 12 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -4.65–+1.07% · other way +2.73% (n=12) |
| 13 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.93–-0.01% · other way +2.51% (n=12) |
| 14 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -1.3–+1.63% · other way +1.61% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short COIN/MSTR; their up-history clusters in structural-BTC-bull windows, so the realized move reflects the crypto regime, not appetite for an Afghan ISIS-K war.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -7.7% · 5d -6.4% | 75% | 24 | 0.37 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +3.8% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 65% | 28 | 0.29 | ⚠ differs |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -2.5% · 5d -2.5% | 65% | 34 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -0.6% | 67% | 34 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -1.0% | 66% | 33 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d +1.1% ↺ fades | 68% | 28 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.4% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 64% | 29 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.9% · 5d -2.7% | 64% | 33 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 65% | 28 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.8% · 5d +3.0% | 61% | 31 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 28 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -3.6% | 61% | 27 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +0.8% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 60% | 29 | 0.15 | ⚠ differs |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -8.1% | 62% | 21 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
ISIS-K active vs Taliban; sustained destabilizing offensive plausible over 3yr but not regime-threatening A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.