What if China and Russia formalise an anti-Western alliance?
A formal China-Russia anti-Western bloc blends geopolitical risk with dollar-confidence erosion, so the trade is a VIX bid plus the long end selling and gold up, with equities lower — a hybrid risk-off-and-reserve-flight signature. Rhymes with the post-2022 deepening of the Sino-Russian 'no limits' axis that accelerated yuan settlement and reserve diversification. Forward angle: a formal bloc hardens supply-chain and energy realignment (cheap Russian crude to China), so the durable expression is commodities-and-FX bifurcation more than a one-off equity drawdown.
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 3–10 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. China and Russia formalize a strategic anti-Western alliance and trade bloc. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Dollar/reserve confidence ▼ — 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 -0.04–+9.44% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.4–-0.69% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.2% hist +0.17–+2.59% · other way -0.6% (n=12) |
| 4 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.7% hist -1.82–+8.43% · other way +26.92% (n=12) |
| 5 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.5% hist -0.98–-0.52% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 6 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.7% hist -1.09–-0.19% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 7 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -0.82–+0.21% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 8 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▲ +0.9% hist -4.7–+1.69% · other way +5.17% (n=12) |
| 9 | Coinbase COINon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.7% hist -4.68–+14.7% · other way +21.23% (n=12) |
| 10 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.65–-0.25% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 11 | US dollar (DXY) DXYon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.46–-0.13% · other way +0.41% (n=12) |
| 12 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +6bp hist +0.24–+7.18% · other way +12.4% (n=12) |
| 13 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -2.03–+0.21% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 14 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.45–+4.13% · other way +0.88% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade's AVGO short: the +32% analogues are all 2025 tariff windows where AI-capex demand, not the China-Russia bloc, drove the chip higher — a swamped, second-order macro channel.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.1% | 68% | 25 | 0.35 | ⚠ differs |
| COIN COIN | LONG | +13.2% · 5d +3.0% | 68% | 17 | 0.33 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +5.9% · 5d +5.2% | 67% | 27 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.5% · 5d -0.8% | 68% | 31 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +4.0% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 64% | 24 | 0.27 | ⚠ differs |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -4.5% · 5d -3.9% | 65% | 23 | 0.23 | ⚠ differs |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +6.9% · 5d -1.4% ↺ fades | 63% | 25 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -0.2% | 64% | 24 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| MU MU | SHORT | -4.3% · 5d -2.8% | 62% | 30 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d +1.2% ↺ fades | 64% | 24 | 0.19 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.3% | 61% | 24 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 61% | 24 | 0.18 | ⚠ differs |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.4% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 61% | 25 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -0.9% | 60% | 30 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
China-Russia 'no-limits' partnership deepening; formal bloc over decade is a developing trend. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.