What if Critical-mineral crunch stalls transition?
Copper, lithium and rare-earth shortages outpace supply, raising clean-tech costs and slowing the energy transition while bidding up industrial metals.
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 1–3 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 mixed shock. Copper, lithium and rare-earth shortages outpace supply, raising clean-tech costs and slowing the energy transition while bidding up industrial metals. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Clean-energy abundance ▼ · Industrial demand ▲ · Inflation surprise ▲ — 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 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.8% hist -0.15–+1.33% · other way -2.93% (n=11) |
| 2 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.7% hist -0.79–+1.15% · other way -3.33% (n=11) |
| 3 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.6% hist +0.09–+0.42% · other way -3.14% (n=12) |
| 4 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.6% hist -1.06–+2.23% · other way -3.69% (n=11) |
| 5 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.6% hist -1.69–+2.93% · other way -4.32% (n=11) |
| 6 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -9.79–+18.08% · other way +5.8% (n=11) |
| 7 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.2% hist -0.83–+0.84% · other way -1.18% (n=11) |
| 8 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist +0.02–+0.22% · other way -2.21% (n=12) |
| 9 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -4.26–+14.75% · other way +4.13% (n=11) |
| 10 | Platinum XPTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.1% hist -1.33–+1.26% · other way -0.49% (n=11) |
| 11 | Palladium XPDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.1% hist -2.76–+2.1% · other way +4.49% (n=11) |
| 12 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +2bp hist -3.82–+18.65% · other way +2.5% (n=12) |
| 13 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.1% hist -0.19–-0.03% · other way +0.64% (n=11) |
| 14 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +2bp hist -4.74–+10.72% · other way +1.4% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 19 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DAL DAL | LONG | +13.2% · 5d +2.9% | 85% | 12 | 0.64 | ⚠ differs |
| 30y yield DGS30 | LONG | +16bp · 5d +4bp | 72% | 18 | 0.41 | ✓ matches cascade |
| UAL UAL | LONG | +18.2% · 5d +1.0% | 69% | 12 | 0.36 | ⚠ differs |
| Volatility VIX | SHORT | -4.8% · 5d -5.4% | 73% | 14 | 0.35 | · |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d -4.7% | 62% | 12 | 0.21 | ⚠ differs |
| XLE XLE | LONG | +0.8% · 5d -1.7% ↺ fades | 58% | 12 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -0.4% | 58% | 12 | 0.14 | ⚠ differs |
| XPD XPD | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -0.5% | 58% | 12 | 0.14 | ⚠ differs |
| XOM XOM | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -2.0% | 54% | 19 | 0.07 | ⚠ differs |
| US dollar DXY | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -0.2% | 51% | 19 | 0.02 | · |
| CL CL | LONG | +1.8% · 5d -3.5% ↺ fades | 31% | 12 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| FCX FCX | LONG | +2.6% · 5d +0.2% | 50% | 12 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CVX CVX | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -2.2% | 46% | 19 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| XPT XPT | SHORT | -1.6% · 5d +1.0% ↺ fades | 42% | 12 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |