What if a rogue nation starts solar geoengineering on its own?
Unilateral SAI is a geopolitical-crisis and agri-termination-shock story: the tradable legs are a tail-risk vol bid plus a monsoon/yield-disruption premium in grains, not a clean semis selloff. No real analogue exists; the closest reasoning rhyme is Pinatubo's 1991 eruption, which cooled the globe ~0.5C and perturbed monsoons. Forward angle: the novel risk is cross-border retaliation over weather modification — price it as geopolitical risk plus agri convexity, not a Nasdaq drawdown.
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 3–10 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. A nation unilaterally begins solar geoengineering, triggering geopolitical crisis and termination-shock fears in agriculture markets. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ — 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 | ▲ +6.3% hist +0.34–+7.87% · other way -0.14% (n=11) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -2.2% hist -1.46–-0.59% · other way -0.16% (n=11) |
| 3 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -0.76–-0.42% · other way +3.27% (n=11) |
| 4 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.6% hist -0.83–+0.19% · other way -0.02% (n=11) |
| 5 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.2% hist -0.9–-0.39% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 6 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.56–-0.15% · other way +6.07% (n=11) |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.26–+0.06% · other way +0.39% (n=11) |
| 8 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.2–+1.45% · other way +2.35% (n=11) |
| 9 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -5.14–+1.61% · other way +0.15% (n=11) |
| 10 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -3.26–+0.72% · other way +2.87% (n=11) |
| 11 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.63–+2.15% · other way +3.52% (n=11) |
| 12 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.7% hist -0.04–+0.52% · other way -0.41% (n=11) |
| 13 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -2.68–+0.89% · other way -1.77% (n=11) |
| 14 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.29–+3.55% · other way +30.92% (n=11) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade's NOC long: the -4.3% leans on the 1991 Soviet coup and gold squeezes where defense fell with broad risk, not a geopolitical crisis driving real defense-spend demand.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +4.5% · 5d +4.0% | 67% | 29 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -2.5% | 66% | 34 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.0% | 66% | 27 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +3.5% · 5d -2.2% ↺ fades | 66% | 27 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| XLK XLK | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 64% | 27 | 0.21 | ⚠ differs |
| JPM JPM | SHORT | -1.5% · 5d -0.9% | 64% | 34 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -1.4% | 60% | 40 | 0.19 | ⚠ differs |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d +0.7% ↺ fades | 62% | 26 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TSM TSM | SHORT | -2.6% · 5d -2.8% | 62% | 28 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -0.9% | 61% | 34 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +4.9% · 5d -8.2% ↺ fades | 63% | 13 | 0.17 | ⚠ differs |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +10bp · 5d +5bp | 58% | 40 | 0.16 | · |
| GBPUSD GBPUSD | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.2% | 59% | 26 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -4.4% · 5d -2.3% | 57% | 32 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Unilateral state-level stratospheric geoengineering is novel; no precedent, governance taboo holds. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.