What if a China slowdown craters iron ore, copper and coal?
A hard China investment slowdown craters iron ore and copper, so the trade is short bulk/base-metal miners and AUD as the China proxy — Freeport -2.3% and AUD lower is the right spine. Rhymes with the 2015 China hard-landing scare that sent iron ore under $40 and battered BHP/Rio and the Aussie. Transmission: Australia (iron ore), Brazil (Vale) and Chile (copper) take the terms-of-trade hit as China is ~55% of copper and the marginal iron-ore buyer. Forward angle: Beijing's reluctance to re-lever property this cycle means the usual stimulus rescue for metals may not arrive.
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 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. 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 mixed shock. A hard Chinese investment slowdown craters iron ore, copper and coal, hammering Australia, Brazil and Chile terms of trade. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Copper ▼ · 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.
| Market | Class | Projected move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.3% hist -7.4–+1.24% · other way +8.06% (n=11) |
| 2 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -1.7% hist -2.35–-0.01% · other way +1.17% (n=11) |
| 3 | China internet KWEBon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -3.58–+0.65% · other way -1.8% (n=8) |
| 4 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -1.15–+0.06% · other way -4.6% (n=8) |
| 5 | Aussie dollar AUD 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.91–+0.07% · other way +0.26% (n=10) |
| 6 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.39–-0.1% · other way -0.11% (n=10) |
| 7 | Platinum XPTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.4% hist -0.62–+-0.0% · other way +5.18% (n=11) |
| 8 | Palladium XPDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.4% hist -1.83–+0.48% · other way +4.6% (n=11) |
| 9 | Turkish lira TRY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.07–+0.24% · other way -0.33% (n=10) |
| 10 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.21–-0.03% · other way +3.33% (n=11) |
| 11 | KOSPI 200 KR200on Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.46–+0.31% · other way +4.21% (n=11) |
| 12 | Indian rupee INR 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.38–+0.06% · other way -0.05% (n=10) |
| 13 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.2% hist -2.19–+0.78% · other way +4.19% (n=11) |
Probable recommendation
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XPT XPT | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d +1.4% ↺ fades | 70% | 29 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -2.6% | 65% | 25 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KR200 KR200 | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d -1.5% | 66% | 31 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| FCX FCX | SHORT | -5.7% · 5d -2.3% | 63% | 31 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -1.1% | 62% | 29 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.0% | 62% | 29 | 0.20 | · |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.9% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 62% | 29 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -5.4% · 5d -3.7% | 61% | 24 | 0.17 | · |
| BABA BABA | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -2.9% | 59% | 24 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.0% · 5d +0.6% | 59% | 29 | 0.15 | · |
| XPD XPD | SHORT | -1.5% · 5d -0.9% | 59% | 29 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CL CL | SHORT | -2.0% · 5d -1.3% | 57% | 29 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.3% | 57% | 29 | 0.11 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -7bp · 5d -6bp | 55% | 40 | 0.09 | · |
Why this probability
China investment slowdown real but hard demand-shock to commodities one-off; partly offset by stimulus. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.