What if the US sanctions Chinese banks over Iran's oil?
Secondary sanctions on Chinese banks clearing teapot-refiner payments choke Iran's ~1.5mbpd export lifeline; Brent leads on the Gulf premium while the China-clearing angle also drags tech/Nasdaq on trade-war read-through. Rhymes with the 2018 Iran re-sanctioning, which removed barrels but was offset by waivers. China is Iran's near-sole crude buyer and the chokepoint is the banking channel, not the oil; Beijing can reroute via smaller non-dollar banks. Forward angle: the Nasdaq leg looks overweighted — this is an oil/clearing shock, not a broad tariff event.
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 0–6 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 risk-off shock. US imposes secondary sanctions on Chinese banks clearing teapot refiners' Iran oil payments, severing Tehran's primary export lifeline. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Oil supply 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 | ▲ +6.4% hist +0.79–+6.34% · other way -0.36% (n=12) |
| 2 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +4.2% hist +0.59–+2.57% · other way -3.03% (n=12) |
| 3 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +3.6% hist -3.1–+1.9% · other way -2.56% (n=12) |
| 4 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.1% hist -1.84–-0.58% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 5 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +2.5% hist +0.43–+1.43% · other way -1.36% (n=12) |
| 6 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.44–-0.75% · other way -0.15% (n=12) |
| 7 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.7% hist -1.08–-0.62% · other way +1.22% (n=12) |
| 8 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.1% hist -2.25–+1.4% · other way +8.11% (n=12) |
| 9 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.8% hist +0.36–+1.68% · other way -2.15% (n=12) |
| 10 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.6% hist +0.46–+1.13% · other way +0.18% (n=12) |
| 11 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.8% hist -1.37–+0.36% · other way +4.5% (n=12) |
| 12 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -1.12–-0.29% · other way +1.95% (n=12) |
| 13 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +10bp hist +0.01–+6.74% · other way +7.2% (n=12) |
| 14 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +9bp hist -0.59–+7.04% · other way +7.3% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade: HOOD/NVDA's +18%/+4% history is regime-biased by 2025 BTC-bull and AI-capex windows; on oil, the bearish CL/BRENT analogues are supply-glut events (OPEC 2014, Saudi-Russia 2020), opposite of an Iran-supply cutoff.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOOD HOOD | LONG | +7.4% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 71% | 13 | 0.36 | ⚠ differs |
| MU MU | SHORT | -5.1% · 5d -4.9% | 71% | 34 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CL CL | SHORT | -3.9% · 5d -1.6% | 68% | 26 | 0.32 | ⚠ differs |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.9% | 71% | 34 | 0.32 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -1.0% | 70% | 38 | 0.32 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -3.5% | 68% | 26 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.0% · 5d +4.6% | 64% | 30 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.2% · 5d -2.0% | 64% | 38 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.1% | 64% | 23 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| LMT LMT | LONG | +3.1% · 5d +0.6% | 63% | 40 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ASML ASML | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -2.9% | 63% | 28 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -1.6% · 5d -4.9% | 60% | 27 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -3.7% | 62% | 18 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -1.7% | 60% | 28 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Secondary sanctions on Chinese banks over Iran oil repeatedly threatened; partial actions plausible near-term. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.