What if Trump freezes Taiwan arms sale as a Xi bargaining chip?
Washington pauses a pending Taiwan weapons package to extract trade concessions from Beijing, unnerving Taipei; defense names wobble while a thaw narrative briefly lifts risk appetite.
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. Washington pauses a pending Taiwan weapons package to extract trade concessions from Beijing, unnerving Taipei; defense names wobble while a thaw narrative briefly lifts risk appetite. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Defense spending ▼ · Geopolitical risk ▲ · Risk appetite ▲ · Trade tension ▼ — 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 | ▲ +2.3% hist -1.02–+6.92% |
| 2 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.4% hist -0.39–+0.23% |
| 3 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.4% hist -0.19–+0.34% |
| 4 | Lockheed LMT 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -1.04–+1.64% |
| 5 | Northrop NOC 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.83–+1.28% |
| 6 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▲ +0.3% hist -1.94–+2.76% |
| 7 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.3% hist +0.06–+0.3% |
| 8 | RTX RTXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -1.59–+0.49% |
| 9 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▲ +0.2% model prior · unmeasured |
| 10 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -0.1–+0.19% |
| 11 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▲ +0.2% hist -7.07–+2.8% |
| 12 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▲ +0.2% hist -0.39–+0.09% |
| 13 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -0.16–+0.19% |
Probable recommendation
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.1% | 75% | 25 | 0.47 | ⚠ differs |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +5.2% · 5d +1.5% | 64% | 33 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -6.7% · 5d -4.1% | 67% | 17 | 0.25 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.1% | 66% | 22 | 0.25 | · |
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -1.4% | 56% | 38 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +4bp · 5d +6bp | 56% | 38 | 0.12 | · |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.0% · 5d +0.2% | 55% | 38 | 0.09 | · |
| SMH SMH | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -1.3% | 55% | 25 | 0.07 | ⚠ differs |
| BABA BABA | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -1.8% | 53% | 20 | 0.06 | ⚠ differs |
| NOC NOC | LONG | +1.4% · 5d +1.2% | 51% | 35 | 0.03 | ⚠ differs |
| SPX SPX | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 51% | 38 | 0.02 | ⚠ differs |
| LMT LMT | LONG | +1.8% · 5d +0.3% | 51% | 38 | 0.02 | ⚠ differs |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -3.6% · 5d -2.9% | 51% | 20 | 0.02 | · |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +2.7% · 5d -2.4% ↺ fades | 46% | 11 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |