What if regulators probe hyperscalers' off-balance-sheet compute vehicles?
An SPV accounting probe reprices hidden hyperscaler leverage, modestly widening credit and de-rating the semi complex as off-balance-sheet compute comes onshore. Echoes Enron-era SPV scrutiny (2001-02) that punished perceived financial-engineering names. Skeptic's note: a probe is slow-burn, not a shock — the muted cascade is right; the real risk is forced consolidation of leases onto balance sheets, compressing reported FCF rather than triggering forced selling.
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 6–18 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. Regulators open a probe into off-balance-sheet compute SPVs, repricing hyperscaler leverage. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▼ · Financial conditions ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.