What if the US tears up the EU auto-tariff cap?
Tearing up the EU auto cap and reimposing 50% tariffs with EU retaliation on Boeing/bourbon/Big Tech is a transatlantic-trade shock -- but the cascade is mis-routed through Alibaba and the yuan, which is a US-China channel; the real pain is EU autos (BMW/VW/Mercedes), Boeing, and US tech-services exposure. Rhymes with the 2018-2019 EU-US Section 232 auto-tariff threats and the 2025 Liberation Day tariff selloff. Transmission: Germany's auto exporters and US aircraft/spirits are the direct hostages. Forward: Big Tech services in the retaliation list is the novel escalation lever versus prior goods-only rounds.
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 scraps the 15% EU auto cap and reimposes 50% tariffs; EU retaliates on Boeing, bourbon, and Big Tech services. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Risk appetite ▼ · Trade tension ▲ — 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 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -4.0% hist -2.37–-1.21% · other way -0.29% (n=12) |
| 2 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.4% hist -2.15–-0.75% · other way +2.4% (n=12) |
| 3 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.0% hist -2.79–+0.98% · other way +4.34% (n=12) |
| 4 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.9% hist -2.28–+0.19% · other way +3.35% (n=12) |
| 5 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.6% hist -1.73–-0.82% · other way -0.38% (n=12) |
| 6 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.92–+0.07% · other way -1.13% (n=12) |
| 7 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.95–+0.68% · other way +1.14% (n=12) |
| 8 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -4.66–+0.35% · other way +5.45% (n=12) |
| 9 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.65–-0.15% · other way +1.84% (n=12) |
| 10 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -3.61–+0.28% · other way -0.64% (n=12) |
| 11 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.1% hist -1.64–+0.12% · other way -2.98% (n=12) |
| 12 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.9% hist -2.34–-0.08% · other way +24.57% (n=12) |
| 13 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.7% hist -9.6–+2.13% · other way -1.0% (n=12) |
| 14 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -1.6% hist -1.21–-0.37% · other way -0.81% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on MSTR/SOL; the +6% history is pure regime contamination — those 2025 analogues are BTC/crypto structural-bull windows, not an EU-auto tariff channel, and hit-rate is a coin-flip 0.67.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -6.3% · 5d -3.4% | 81% | 39 | 0.61 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CL CL | SHORT | -3.2% · 5d -1.8% | 77% | 39 | 0.40 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -7.3% · 5d -6.1% | 71% | 38 | 0.33 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SPX SPX | LONG | +0.7% · 5d +0.1% | 67% | 39 | 0.33 | ⚠ differs |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -0.9% | 70% | 39 | 0.32 | ✓ matches cascade |
| GBPUSD GBPUSD | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 67% | 39 | 0.30 | ⚠ differs |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -0.5% | 65% | 39 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -3.1% · 5d -2.7% | 67% | 39 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| JPM JPM | LONG | +2.1% · 5d +0.3% | 65% | 39 | 0.24 | ⚠ differs |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.2% · 5d -2.9% | 65% | 39 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d +0.7% ↺ fades | 65% | 39 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KRW KRW | LONG | +0.5% · 5d +0.1% | 63% | 39 | 0.23 | ⚠ differs |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.3% · 5d +0.1% | 63% | 39 | 0.23 | · |
| EURUSD EURUSD | LONG | +0.4% · 5d +0.1% | 63% | 39 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
EU-US auto framework unstable under Trump tariff posture; reescalation a live 6mo risk A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.