What if US and EU tariffs triple solar panel costs?
Tripling Chinese module costs via US/EU tariffs is a trade-war shock; the cleanest leg is CNY weaker and China megacaps (BABA) lower as Beijing bears the brunt, with the broad Nasdaq hit overstated for a narrow solar measure. Direct rhyme is the April-2025 Liberation-Day/100%+ tariff peak that sank the yuan and China tech. Transmission: China supplies ~80% of modules, so US installers eat the cost. Forward angle: domestic/SE-Asia capacity now cushions more than in 2018.
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 mixed shock. Sweeping US and EU tariffs on Chinese solar modules triple panel costs and halt utility-scale buildouts. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Trade tension ▲ · Industrial demand ▼ — 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 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.5% hist -0.81–-0.34% · other way +1.89% (n=11) |
| 2 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -0.76–-0.3% · other way +2.53% (n=11) |
| 3 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -2.27–+0.32% · other way +8.9% (n=11) |
| 4 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -0.69–-0.3% · other way +4.43% (n=11) |
| 5 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.37–+1.28% · other way -6.39% (n=8) |
| 6 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.0% hist -0.61–-0.14% · other way +2.37% (n=11) |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.59–-0.25% · other way +5.85% (n=11) |
| 8 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.81–+0.25% · other way +1.71% (n=9) |
| 9 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -3.91–+1.29% · other way +8.38% (n=11) |
| 10 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.22–+0.0% · other way +11.36% (n=11) |
| 11 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -2.22–+0.51% · other way +2.6% (n=11) |
| 12 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.49–-0.15% · other way -0.66% (n=10) |
| 13 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.6% hist -1.06–+0.09% · other way -0.69% (n=11) |
| 14 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.73–+0.73% · other way +7.89% (n=11) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on MSTR: +3.5% leans on the +65% US-China tariff-war window — a single BTC-bull regime print, not a solar-tariff analogue; contaminated sample, the panel-cost shock has no crypto channel.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 35 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INR INR | LONG | +0.1% · 5d +0.1% | 70% | 25 | 0.34 | ⚠ differs |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +8.0% · 5d -6.4% ↺ fades | 68% | 14 | 0.26 | ⚠ differs |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -1.4% | 67% | 18 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d +0.8% ↺ fades | 66% | 25 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| USDJPY USDJPY | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.3% | 62% | 26 | 0.21 | ⚠ differs |
| GBPUSD GBPUSD | LONG | +0.1% · 5d +0.3% | 62% | 25 | 0.19 | ⚠ differs |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 59% | 26 | 0.17 | · |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -1.2% | 59% | 19 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +4.2% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades | 60% | 27 | 0.16 | · |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -1bp · 5d +1bp ↺ fades | 58% | 34 | 0.15 | · |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +2.3% · 5d -3.0% ↺ fades | 59% | 26 | 0.14 | ⚠ differs |
| NDX NDX | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -1.0% ↺ fades | 58% | 28 | 0.13 | ⚠ differs |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades | 57% | 26 | 0.12 | ⚠ differs |
| XLK XLK | LONG | +0.2% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades | 57% | 26 | 0.12 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Tariff escalation is live 2025-26 trend; but tripling costs and halting buildouts is aggressive. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.