What if Hong Kong's office values collapse by half?
Grade-A office halving impairs HK developers first and then the banks financing them, so the actionable read is HK property/financials credit, not the modest HY/copper moves shown. Rhymes with the 2021-22 China-developer crunch (Evergrande/Kaisa offshore defaults) that froze property credit and bled into HK-listed names. Transmission: weak China demand and firm exits feed the office vacancy; banks mark down collateral. Forward angle: unlike 2008 this is a slow grind in values, so the tell is rising vacancy and falling rents impairing bank books over years, not a single Lehman-style gap.
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. Grade-A office values halve as firms exit, impairing Hong Kong developers and the banks financing them. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — China growth ▼ · Credit spreads ▲ · Growth surprise ▼ — 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 | High-yield credit HYG 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.75–-0.01% · other way -0.24% (n=12) |
| 2 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -1.01–+1.28% · other way +25.2% (n=12) |
| 3 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -2.03–+0.57% · other way -0.01% (n=12) |
| 4 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.4% hist -1.4–+0.32% · other way +1.57% (n=12) |
| 5 | China internet KWEBon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -0.33–+0.27% · other way -0.26% (n=11) |
| 6 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +0.3% hist -0.17–+0.81% · other way -3.79% (n=12) |
| 7 | Financials XLF 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.77–+0.1% · other way -0.19% (n=12) |
| 8 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -1.44–+2.41% · other way -3.17% (n=11) |
| 9 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.3% hist -5.21–+1.83% · other way +5.1% (n=11) |
| 10 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.95–+0.24% · other way +0.28% (n=12) |
| 11 | JPMorgan JPM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.94–+0.18% · other way +1.7% (n=12) |
| 12 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.19–+0.13% · other way -0.09% (n=12) |
| 13 | Aussie dollar AUD 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.53–+0.09% · other way -1.69% (n=12) |
| 14 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.2% hist -19.16–+4.88% · other way -2.51% (n=11) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short: MSTR's +15.8% history is regime contamination — ASML-crash/Evergrande analogues hit +69%/+61% on the BTC bull, not because HK property-bank impairment is bullish for a levered bitcoin proxy.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -16.8% · 5d -17.3% | 81% | 15 | 0.45 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -7.3% · 5d -7.9% | 66% | 17 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.0% | 66% | 35 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -1.3% | 62% | 38 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| JPM JPM | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -1.7% | 62% | 40 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.3% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 60% | 40 | 0.16 | · |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -1.5% | 58% | 38 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -4.7% · 5d -4.0% | 58% | 21 | 0.13 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SPX SPX | LONG | +0.2% · 5d +0.2% | 57% | 40 | 0.13 | ⚠ differs |
| FCX FCX | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d -1.8% | 56% | 39 | 0.10 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KWEB KWEB | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -1.5% ↺ fades | 55% | 23 | 0.10 | ⚠ differs |
| COIN COIN | LONG | +3.3% · 5d +0.6% | 55% | 14 | 0.09 | ⚠ differs |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -1.6% | 54% | 40 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d +0.0% ↺ fades | 53% | 37 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
3yr window; HK office already deeply impaired, halving plausible as structural decline continues. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.