What if the PLA fires on a Philippine resupply mission at Mischief Reef?
PLA fire on a Philippine resupply run invokes the mutual-defense treaty and a standoff: VIX +13, Nasdaq -6, BTC/SOL down as treaty-trigger risk reprices beta. Like the 2023-24 Second Thomas Shoal water-cannon clashes, but live-fire is a sharp rung higher than the historical analogue's non-lethal harassment. Transmission is risk appetite and shipping insurance. Forward angle: a kinetic Mischief Reef event is the first real test of whether the MDT actually pulls the US in, and that ambiguity is what markets will discount.
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. PLA fires on a Philippine resupply mission, invoking the US-Philippines treaty and a great-power standoff. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — 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 | ▲ +13.2% hist +2.54–+10.6% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -5.7% hist -2.86–-1.43% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.9% hist -2.23–-0.89% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.1% hist -1.7–-1.0% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 5 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.0% hist -2.76–+2.0% · other way +26.92% (n=12) |
| 6 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -2.6% hist -3.66–+0.03% · other way +0.89% (n=12) |
| 7 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.6% hist -1.53–-0.11% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 8 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -1.9% model prior · unmeasured |
| 9 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.7% hist -9.98–+0.97% · other way +5.13% (n=12) |
| 10 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.7% hist -5.43–+1.07% · other way +5.17% (n=12) |
| 11 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.0% hist -1.69–-0.38% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 12 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.6% hist -0.02–+2.29% · other way -0.6% (n=12) |
| 13 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.7% hist -1.87–-0.17% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 14 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.7% hist -1.6–+3.59% · other way +0.88% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade's long on RTX: the -3.6% is poisoned by the stale 2020 oil-war window — a Mischief Reef treaty activation is direct defense-spend tailwind, so history's off-shock sample is unreliable.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -7.7% · 5d -6.4% | 75% | 24 | 0.37 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +3.8% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 65% | 28 | 0.29 | ⚠ differs |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -2.5% · 5d -2.5% | 65% | 34 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -0.6% | 67% | 34 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -1.0% | 66% | 33 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d +1.1% ↺ fades | 68% | 28 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.4% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 64% | 29 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.9% · 5d -2.7% | 64% | 33 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 65% | 28 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 29 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.8% · 5d +3.0% | 61% | 31 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 28 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -3.6% | 61% | 27 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -8.1% | 62% | 21 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
PLA firing on Philippine resupply plausible after years of friction, but lethal force restrained so far. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.