What if DRC cobalt export quota squeezes the battery chain?
The DRC extends and tightens its cobalt export quota to defend prices, throttling hydroxide shipments and forcing cathode makers to draw down strategic stocks at higher cost.
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. The DRC extends and tightens its cobalt export quota to defend prices, throttling hydroxide shipments and forcing cathode makers to draw down strategic stocks at higher cost. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Clean-energy abundance ▲ · Industrial demand ▲ · 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 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.3% hist -0.85–-0.48% · other way -1.27% (n=5) |
| 2 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -0.86–-0.36% · other way +1.87% (n=4) |
| 3 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.0% hist -1.02–+0.58% · other way -16.4% (n=4) |
| 4 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.72–-0.02% · other way +0.15% (n=4) |
| 5 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.71–+0.24% · other way -1.02% (n=4) |
| 6 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -1.67–+0.27% |
| 7 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -2.97–+0.9% · other way +4.37% (n=4) |
| 8 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.71–+0.34% · other way -11.69% (n=5) |
| 9 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.76–+0.92% |
| 10 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -3.54–+0.93% · other way -7.33% (n=5) |
| 11 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.9–+3.56% · other way -8.4% (n=4) |
| 12 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.53–-0.07% · other way -0.23% (n=4) |
| 13 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.56–-0.05% |
| 14 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -2.51–+4.66% · other way -6.79% (n=4) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL CL | SHORT | -2.7% · 5d -3.2% | 73% | 28 | 0.40 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -0.9% | 71% | 28 | 0.38 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -0.2% | 68% | 28 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -3.2% · 5d -3.4% | 69% | 28 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.1% · 5d -1.0% | 69% | 33 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | LONG | +3.2% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 71% | 28 | 0.32 | ⚠ differs |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -2.3% | 69% | 28 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +0.8% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 64% | 28 | 0.27 | · |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -1.1% | 61% | 23 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -4bp · 5d +2bp ↺ fades | 60% | 39 | 0.19 | · |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -1.6% | 59% | 32 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SPX SPX | LONG | +0.5% · 5d +0.2% | 59% | 39 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
| CVX CVX | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -0.8% | 59% | 39 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| EURUSD EURUSD | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.1% | 58% | 28 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |