🏛 Central Banks & Macro risk-off · 1–3 years
A what‑if from the future

What if Chinese life insurers face a negative-spread crisis as investment yields fall below guarantees?

Chinese life insurers face a negative-spread crisis as falling investment yields fall below guaranteed policy returns (a Japan-1990s parallel), threatening sector solvency.

10%
our model probability
over 1–3 years
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 10% · 90% range 3–18% · 40 analogues · measured class recession 100% in 3 yr · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — recession ≈1.9335/yr → 100% in 3 yr100%
Analyst prior · editorial share 10% of the class10%
Pooled · weight 87%10%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)10%
Published10%

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.

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Chinese life insurers face a negative-spread crisis as falling investment yields fall below guaranteed policy returns (a Japan-1990s parallel), threatening sector solvency. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — China growth ▼ · Credit spreads ▲ · Financial conditions ▲ · Recession signal ▲ — 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.

MarketClassProjected move
1MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.8%
hist -1.1–+1.13% · other way +25.2% (n=12)
2High-yield credit HYG 📈 chartRate▼ -0.7%
hist -0.8–-0.04% · other way -0.24% (n=12)
3Financials XLF 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -0.87–+0.04% · other way -0.19% (n=12)
4Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartVol▲ +0.5%
hist -0.12–+0.9% · other way -3.79% (n=12)
5Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.5%
hist -5.31–+1.77% · other way +5.1% (n=11)
6Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.5%
hist -19.29–+4.81% · other way -2.51% (n=11)
7Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -2.03–+0.57% · other way -0.01% (n=12)
8Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCommodity▼ -0.4%
hist -1.4–+0.32% · other way +1.57% (n=12)
9China internet KWEBon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.4%
hist -0.33–+0.27% · other way -0.26% (n=11)
10JPMorgan JPM 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.3%
hist -0.97–+0.16% · other way +1.7% (n=12)
11Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -0.3%
hist -0.97–+0.23% · other way +0.28% (n=12)
12S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -0.3%
hist -0.23–+0.11% · other way -0.09% (n=12)
13Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartCrypto▼ -0.3%
hist -7.96–+2.87% · other way +3.69% (n=11)
14Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.3%
hist -1.44–+2.41% · other way -3.17% (n=11)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
Cash / hedgeRaise cash and hold the long hedges above; this scenario is net risk-off.
For a common-man portfolio: A typical stock-heavy portfolio is at risk. Consider trimming equities, raising cash, and a small cash hedge.
Also moves (not yet on Hyperliquid): High-yield credit -0.7% · Financials -0.5% · Freeport (copper) -0.5% · JPMorgan -0.3% · Aussie dollar -0.2% · Tech sector -0.2%

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.

Kaisa Group offshore default 2021-12 August 24, 2015 ETF flash crash 2015-08 Greece first EU/IMF bailout 2010-05 Northern Rock bank run 2007-09 Hong Kong Stock Exchange four-day closure after Black Monday 1987-10 China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 ASML bookings-miss crash 2024-10 Evergrande ordered to liquidate 2024-01 First Republic Bank seized and sold to JPMorgan 2023-05 Regional-bank panic deepens after Signature seizure 2023-03 Offshore yuan hits a record low 2022-11 China fires ballistic missiles into Japan's EEZ during Taiwan drills 2022-08 China homebuyer mortgage boycott spreads 2022-07 Sunac China dollar-bond default 2022-05 Alibaba upsizes buyback to record $25 billion 2022-03 Evergrande debt crisis - global selloff 2021-09 Didi removed from China app stores after NYSE IPO 2021-07 Bitcoin May 2021 crash 2021-05 China 'three red lines' developer leverage rules 2020-08 Chinese yuan breaks 7 per dollar; US names China manipulator 2019-08 Apple cuts revenue guidance on China weakness 2019-01 China stock-market circuit-breaker fiasco 2016-01 Shanghai A-share bubble peak / crash begins 2015-06 HYG record outflows in 2014 high-yield rout 2014-10 Mt. Gox collapse 2014-02 Mt. Gox halts withdrawals 2014-02 Cyprus deposit bail-in 2013-03 Spain requests EUR100bn bank bailout 2012-06 Bankia nationalised in Spain's banking crisis 2012-05 Portugal requests EU-IMF bailout 2011-04 Greece requests EU/IMF bailout 2010-04 Anglo Irish Bank nationalisation 2009-01 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorship 2008-09 IndyMac Bank seized by the Office of Thrift Supervision 2008-07 American Home Mortgage bankruptcy 2007-08 Bear Stearns freezes redemptions on subprime hedge funds 2007-06 New Century Financial bankruptcy 2007-04 HSBC subprime profit warning 2007-02 Turkey lets the lira float 2001-02 October 27, 1997 mini-crash 1997-10
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
SOL SOLSHORT-16.8% · 5d -17.3%81%15 0.45✓ matches cascade
ETH ETHSHORT-7.3% · 5d -7.9%66%17 0.27✓ matches cascade
High-yield credit HYGSHORT-0.5% · 5d -0.0%66%35 0.25✓ matches cascade
CL CLSHORT-2.5% · 5d -2.0%65%38 0.24✓ matches cascade
XLF XLFSHORT-0.6% · 5d -1.3%62%38 0.21✓ matches cascade
JPM JPMSHORT-0.7% · 5d -1.7%62%40 0.21✓ matches cascade
US dollar DXYLONG+0.3% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades60%40 0.16·
XCU XCUSHORT-1.1% · 5d -1.5%58%38 0.15✓ matches cascade
Bitcoin BTCSHORT-4.7% · 5d -4.0%58%21 0.13✓ matches cascade
SPX SPXLONG+0.2% · 5d +0.2%57%40 0.13⚠ differs
FCX FCXSHORT-1.7% · 5d -1.8%56%39 0.10✓ matches cascade
KWEB KWEBLONG+0.4% · 5d -1.5% ↺ fades55%23 0.10⚠ differs
COIN COINLONG+3.3% · 5d +0.6%55%14 0.09⚠ differs
NDX NDXSHORT-0.7% · 5d -1.6%54%40 0.06✓ matches cascade

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Crowd odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-07-03.