What if a chip-grade neon gas shortage halts lithography?
Loss of Ukrainian/Russian neon, krypton and xenon hits lithography gases, so the clean chain is TSMC and fabless leaders (Nvidia) down on a fab-input chokepoint, with ASML dragged on the litho read. Direct analogue is the 2022 invasion neon scare, which spiked spot neon multi-fold but fabs had buffered inventory and qualified new sources. Ukraine historically supplied ~half of semiconductor-grade neon; fabs since diversified to US/Korea/China gas. Forward angle: post-2022 inventory builds and alternative suppliers make this far less acute than the cascade implies — fade the semis dip.
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. Loss of Ukrainian and Russian neon, krypton, and xenon halts semiconductor lithography worldwide. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Semiconductor supply risk ▲ — 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 | ▲ +3.7% hist -0.79–+8.41% · other way -2.31% (n=12) |
| 2 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.6% hist -3.09–-0.16% · other way +1.64% (n=12) |
| 3 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.1% hist -2.0–-0.3% · other way +4.13% (n=12) |
| 4 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.6% hist -1.01–-0.38% · other way +1.4% (n=12) |
| 5 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.5% hist -3.75–+0.85% · other way -0.91% (n=12) |
| 6 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.4% hist -1.04–-0.23% · other way -0.05% (n=12) |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -0.75–-0.25% · other way -2.72% (n=12) |
| 8 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -1.3–+1.88% · other way +5.76% (n=12) |
| 9 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -3.66–+0.73% · other way -1.7% (n=12) |
| 10 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -0.83–-0.03% · other way -0.28% (n=12) |
| 11 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.62–-0.17% · other way +0.37% (n=12) |
| 12 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -2.74–+0.69% · other way -3.2% (n=12) |
| 13 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.7% hist -1.58–+0.29% · other way +1.35% (n=12) |
| 14 | Intel INTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.6% hist -3.34–+0.9% · other way -2.6% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust history on JPM (+3.8%, hit-rate 0.92, n=12, clean recent bank-channel analogues) — the cascade's neon-to-banks path is weak and over-reaching; but fade MSTR's +11%, which is pure BTC-bull regime contamination.
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 -4.8% | 76% | 24 | 0.37 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -5.2% · 5d -3.1% | 68% | 27 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +6.0% · 5d +4.0% | 65% | 31 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -1.2% | 68% | 33 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -6.7% · 5d -6.8% | 70% | 20 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -3.4% | 61% | 33 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -1.7% | 61% | 34 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -2.8% · 5d -1.7% | 59% | 34 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.1% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 61% | 29 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -0.9% · 5d -3.7% | 61% | 29 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +2.3% · 5d -2.0% ↺ fades | 57% | 28 | 0.14 | ⚠ differs |
| TSM TSM | SHORT | -1.6% · 5d -2.3% | 58% | 30 | 0.13 | ✓ matches cascade |
| LMT LMT | LONG | +3.0% · 5d +0.7% | 57% | 36 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| JPM JPM | LONG | +0.6% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 57% | 34 | 0.11 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Neon supply diversified since 2022; a worldwide lithography halt is now a low-probability tail. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.