What if the Congo cuts its cobalt export quota deeper?
Kinshasa cutting the 2027 cobalt quota below 96.6kt deepens battery-grade hydroxide scarcity — the direct move is cobalt prices and battery/EV-supply-chain cost higher; the cascade's broad China-tariff template (Alibaba, yuan, semis) is mis-mapped to a DRC supply curb. Rhymes with the 2018 cobalt spike to ~$95k/t on DRC supply fear and the 2025 DRC export suspension that doubled prices. Forward angle: LFP chemistry's rise has cut cobalt intensity since 2018, so the squeeze hits high-nickel NMC and aerospace alloys; China (CMOC/Glencore offtake) controls midstream, so the leverage flows through Beijing, not against it.
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. Kinshasa cuts the 2027 cobalt export quota below 96,600 tonnes, deepening battery-grade hydroxide scarcity worldwide. :: The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Industrial demand ▲ · Geopolitical 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 -0.32–+10.4% · other way -6.78% (n=11) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.4% hist -0.89–-0.41% · other way +1.81% (n=11) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.52–+0.41% · other way +2.57% (n=11) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.85–-0.07% · other way +1.0% (n=12) |
| 5 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.6% hist -5.44–+1.63% · other way +8.32% (n=11) |
| 6 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.47–+0.16% · other way +2.75% (n=11) |
| 7 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.4% hist +0.03–+0.46% · other way +1.22% (n=11) |
| 8 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -1.28–+5.66% · other way +17.3% (n=11) |
| 9 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.31–-0.08% · other way +10.49% (n=11) |
| 10 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.3% hist -3.56–+4.73% · other way -8.23% (n=8) |
| 11 | High-yield credit HYG 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -0.4% hist -0.88–+0.13% · other way +1.91% (n=10) |
| 12 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.2% hist -2.54–+0.72% · other way -0.19% (n=11) |
| 13 | Lockheed LMT 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist -1.23–+2.79% · other way -4.66% (n=12) |
| 14 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.2% hist -4.12–+1.7% · other way +8.61% (n=8) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade's NOC long: history's -4.5% is dominated by a single ancient 1991 Soviet-coup window (-24%) on only 9 analogues — thin, stale, and not comparable to a cobalt-quota defense bid.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 39 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +7.4% · 5d +4.9% | 75% | 24 | 0.45 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.2% · 5d -2.4% | 70% | 29 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +5.0% · 5d -2.5% ↺ fades | 71% | 22 | 0.30 | ⚠ differs |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -2.3% · 5d -1.0% | 67% | 22 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| FCX FCX | SHORT | -5.0% · 5d -2.0% | 66% | 23 | 0.26 | ⚠ differs |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -0.7% | 67% | 29 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XPT XPT | SHORT | -2.4% · 5d -1.5% | 65% | 22 | 0.25 | ⚠ differs |
| XLK XLK | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 65% | 22 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -6.8% · 5d -7.2% | 65% | 15 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| COIN COIN | LONG | +7.8% · 5d +0.7% | 62% | 10 | 0.20 | ⚠ differs |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 22 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.4% | 61% | 21 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| JPM JPM | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -0.9% | 60% | 29 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -3.8% · 5d -3.6% | 59% | 18 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
DRC actively managing cobalt quotas downward; a deeper 2027 cut fits the current policy trajectory. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.