What if Chinese buyers strike over undelivered pre-sold homes?
A nationwide mortgage-payment strike on undelivered presales severs developer cash flow at the source and forces the state into completion guarantees; the cleanest trade is short copper/AUD and China internet versus the 2022 'baojiao lou' (stop-the-mortgage) wave, which dented iron ore and CSI300 property names before Beijing's delivery-fund backstop. Transmission runs through Australian iron-ore exporters and German capital-goods suppliers. Forward angle: balance-sheet damage now sits with households, not just developers, so the policy response is fiscal completion-funding rather than rate cuts.
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 6–18 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. Millions of Chinese buyers stop paying mortgages on undelivered pre-sold apartments, freezing developer cash flow nationwide. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — China growth ▼ · Credit spreads ▲ · 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 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.7% hist -1.67–+0.69% · other way +25.2% (n=12) |
| 2 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.5% hist -19.72–+4.55% · other way -2.51% (n=11) |
| 3 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.2% hist -1.37–-0.14% · other way +0.28% (n=12) |
| 4 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -3.07–+0.46% · other way -0.01% (n=12) |
| 5 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -1.2% model prior · unmeasured |
| 6 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -1.1% hist -2.18–+0.23% · other way +1.57% (n=12) |
| 7 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.0% hist -8.33–+2.65% · other way +3.69% (n=11) |
| 8 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +1.0% hist +0.04–+1.28% · other way -3.79% (n=12) |
| 9 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.0% hist -5.56–+1.62% · other way +5.1% (n=11) |
| 10 | China internet KWEBon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.0% hist -0.68–+0.05% · other way -0.26% (n=11) |
| 11 | High-yield credit HYG 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -0.8% hist -0.88–-0.09% · other way -0.24% (n=12) |
| 12 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.65–+2.06% · other way -3.17% (n=11) |
| 13 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.8% hist -0.5–+0.21% · other way -0.09% (n=12) |
| 14 | Aussie dollar AUD 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.8% hist -0.9–-0.08% · other way -1.69% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade's SHORT: MSTR's +19.3% reflects BTC's bull-regime beta during the 2024-25 analogue windows, not Chinese developer cash-flow stress; XLK's +1.6% on a 0.64 hit-rate is noise.
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 |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +1.2% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 67% | 37 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -7.3% · 5d -7.9% | 66% | 17 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CL CL | SHORT | -2.7% · 5d -2.0% | 67% | 37 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.0% | 66% | 35 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NIFTY NIFTY | LONG | +0.3% · 5d -1.7% ↺ fades | 63% | 32 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| XPT XPT | SHORT | -3.1% · 5d -1.9% | 61% | 37 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.5% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 62% | 40 | 0.21 | · |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -1.3% | 61% | 37 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SPX SPX | LONG | +0.5% · 5d +0.3% | 60% | 40 | 0.18 | ⚠ differs |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.5% · 5d -1.6% | 60% | 37 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| JPM JPM | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -1.7% | 60% | 40 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -2.4% · 5d -4.3% | 60% | 40 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -2.5% · 5d -2.8% | 61% | 39 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Localized mortgage boycotts recurred in 2022 but nationwide payment strike repeatedly contained by authorities. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.