What if India strikes China's mega-dam on the Brahmaputra?
An Indian strike on a Chinese Yarlung-Tsangpo mega-dam is a kinetic escalation, not a harvest shock — the trade is risk-off equity/semis selling and a vol spike, with downstream water risk to Bangladesh/Assam a slow-burn second order. Rhymes with the 2019 Balakot strike: sharp one-day risk wobble that markets discounted once it stayed limited. The roots wrongly route this through a climate/agri channel; it is a defense-and-geopolitical conflict shock.
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. India strikes a Chinese mega-dam upstream, escalating a water-and-border conflict. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Defense spending ▲ · Geopolitical risk ▲ · 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.
| Market | Class | Projected move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +13.1% hist +1.61–+12.82% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -5.5% hist -3.54–-1.89% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.8% hist -2.11–-0.56% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.1% hist -1.98–-1.09% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 5 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.9% hist -3.75–+4.25% · other way +26.92% (n=12) |
| 6 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -2.4% hist -3.13–-0.41% · other way +0.89% (n=12) |
| 7 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.6% hist -1.7–-0.75% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 8 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -1.8% model prior · unmeasured |
| 9 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.6% hist -8.02–+2.51% · other way +5.13% (n=12) |
| 10 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.6% hist -5.2–+1.7% · other way +5.17% (n=12) |
| 11 | Lockheed LMT 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.6% hist -0.51–+3.22% · other way -3.24% (n=12) |
| 12 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.5% hist +0.34–+1.43% · other way -0.6% (n=12) |
| 13 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.9% hist -1.65–-0.43% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 14 | Northrop NOC 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.4% hist -0.38–+2.76% · other way -1.37% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade SHORT; COIN/MSTR's +13% is the 2024-25 BTC bull, not a dam-strike water war, and the JPM/SPX +1-3% 'LONG' is noise — escalation between nuclear neighbors is risk-off.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 38 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COIN COIN | LONG | +17.2% · 5d +8.8% | 90% | 9 | 0.67 | ⚠ differs |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d +1.0% ↺ fades | 76% | 19 | 0.41 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.1% | 71% | 21 | 0.40 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +3.8% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 66% | 19 | 0.30 | ⚠ differs |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -1.5% · 5d -3.0% | 71% | 21 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -6.8% · 5d -3.9% | 69% | 15 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -0.3% | 68% | 19 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +6.2% · 5d +3.0% | 66% | 29 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.2% | 66% | 19 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.3% | 64% | 22 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -1.3% | 61% | 32 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| USDJPY USDJPY | LONG | +0.6% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 60% | 25 | 0.19 | ⚠ differs |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.2% · 5d -3.0% | 60% | 31 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLK XLK | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 60% | 22 | 0.15 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
India striking Chinese mega-dam is a novel act of war; near-zero base rate, deterrence holds. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.