What if China fully halts rare-earth magnet exports?
A full rare-earth magnet export halt chokes wind, EV-motor and defense production; CNY weaker and China-exposed equities lower is right, but the -4% TSMC/semis cascade overstates it — magnets are a motor/defense input, only tangential to logic chips. Direct rhyme is China's April-2025 rare-earth export controls that spiked NdPr and rattled autos/defense. Transmission: China controls ~90% of processing, so US/EU motor and missile lines stall. Forward angle: trade MP Materials/Lynas and auto OEMs, not the chip complex.
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. China lets its paused second-wave controls lapse, fully halting rare-earth magnet exports and choking wind and EV-motor production. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Trade tension ▲ · Geopolitical risk ▲ · Industrial demand ▼ — 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 | ▲ +5.3% hist +0.51–+5.93% · other way -7.75% (n=11) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -4.4% hist -2.79–-1.66% · other way +1.89% (n=11) |
| 3 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.4% hist -2.07–-1.21% · other way +2.53% (n=11) |
| 4 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.1% hist -1.76–-0.85% · other way +2.37% (n=11) |
| 5 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.9% hist -2.67–-0.57% · other way +8.9% (n=11) |
| 6 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.8% hist -2.43–-0.66% · other way +4.43% (n=11) |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.99–+0.32% · other way +5.85% (n=11) |
| 8 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.81–+0.05% · other way +1.71% (n=9) |
| 9 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -1.38–-0.42% · other way +8.38% (n=11) |
| 10 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -2.37–-0.43% · other way +11.36% (n=11) |
| 11 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.1% hist -2.72–-0.07% · other way +2.6% (n=11) |
| 12 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.7% hist -1.35–+0.07% · other way -6.39% (n=8) |
| 13 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.6% hist -3.82–+0.62% · other way -0.69% (n=11) |
| 14 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -1.4% hist -0.89–-0.36% · other way -0.66% (n=10) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on MSTR/BTC: history's +10.6% is regime contamination — the +65%/+40% analogues are April-2025 tariff windows that coincided with a structural BTC bull, not this magnet halt.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPX SPX | LONG | +0.4% · 5d +0.3% | 65% | 39 | 0.25 | ⚠ differs |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d +0.7% ↺ fades | 68% | 35 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +3.3% · 5d -3.2% ↺ fades | 61% | 36 | 0.18 | ⚠ differs |
| NOC NOC | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -0.4% | 59% | 37 | 0.17 | ⚠ differs |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +7.4% · 5d -7.5% ↺ fades | 61% | 25 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -3.2% | 60% | 34 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| GBPUSD GBPUSD | LONG | +0.0% · 5d +0.0% | 60% | 35 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -0.1% | 58% | 36 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -2.8% · 5d -2.6% | 59% | 36 | 0.14 | ✓ matches cascade |
| LMT LMT | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.4% | 59% | 39 | 0.14 | ⚠ differs |
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -0.9% · 5d -0.6% | 58% | 39 | 0.14 | ⚠ differs |
| XPT XPT | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -1.2% | 58% | 36 | 0.13 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.9% | 57% | 34 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +2.9% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 57% | 37 | 0.11 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
China rare-earth controls are live leverage; full magnet-export halt plausible but truce holding for now. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.