🛢 Energy & Commodities mixed · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Indonesia bans nickel exports outright?

Jakarta extending its ban to nickel pig iron and intermediates forces stainless and battery makers to scramble for class-1 nickel and MHP — the move is nickel and stainless costs up, hitting Chinese mills; the semis/Nvidia legs in the cascade are mis-mapped. Rhymes with Indonesia's 2014 and 2020 ore bans that spiked nickel and forced Tsingshan's HPAL buildout. Forward angle: Indonesia now dominates global supply (>50%), so a downstream ban is a price weapon — but it also strands Chinese-owned Indonesian capacity, making this a China-vs-China squeeze more than a Western tech-chain hit.

31%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 31% · 90% range 13–48% · 23 analogues · measured class trade_war 87% in 18 mo · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — trade_war ≈1.3449/yr → 87% in 18 mo87%
Analyst prior · editorial share 40% of the class35%
Pooled · weight 79%32%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)32%
Published31%

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.

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. Jakarta extends its ore ban to nickel pig iron and intermediates, forcing stainless and battery makers to scramble. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Industrial demand ▲ · 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.

MarketClassProjected move
1Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -0.8%
hist -0.66–-0.3% · other way +1.81% (n=11)
2Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.8%
hist -0.67–-0.34% · other way +2.75% (n=11)
3Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.7%
hist -1.36–+1.01% · other way +10.49% (n=11)
4Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chartEquity▲ +0.6%
hist -4.4–+2.14% · other way +8.32% (n=11)
5TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.7%
hist -2.4–+1.03% · other way +4.87% (n=11)
6Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -1.81–+0.77% · other way -5.17% (n=8)
7Tech sector XLK 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -0.62–+0.02% · other way +2.57% (n=11)
8AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -1.17–+1.1% · other way +7.06% (n=11)
9Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -1.32–+1.19% · other way +2.05% (n=9)
10Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -3.39–+1.69% · other way +7.93% (n=11)
11Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -0.6–+0.05% · other way +12.35% (n=11)
12ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -3.14–+1.77% · other way +2.4% (n=11)
13Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chartFX▼ -0.4%
hist -0.4–-0.09% · other way -0.17% (n=10)
14Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.3%
hist -3.03–+1.35% · other way -0.53% (n=11)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
For a common-man portfolio: Mixed for a typical portfolio — the move is more about rotation than direction. Favour the winners over the losers below rather than net exposure.
Also moves (not yet on Hyperliquid): Freeport (copper) +0.6% · Tech sector -0.6% · Chinese yuan -0.4% · Aussie dollar -0.2%

Why we may diverge from history

Trust history's FCX/XCU short: 12 recent, on-channel analogues (copper tariff, Liberation Day) faded; the cascade treats a nickel ban as copper-bullish, but realized metals history sells the macro shock.

Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did

Across 23 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.

Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 Gold tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 Trump's 50% copper tariff sends Comex copper to a record 2025-07 China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 Gold tops $2,500 for the first time on Fed rate-cut bets 2024-08 India slashes gold import duty from 15% to 6% in 2024 budget 2024-07 Gold closes above $2,000/oz for the first time 2020-08 Chinese yuan breaks 7 per dollar; US names China manipulator 2019-08 North Korea sixth nuclear test 2017-09 North Korea 'fire and fury' nuclear scare 2017-08 Mexican peso crash on Trump 2016 win 2016-11 Gold futures velocity-logic flash crash 2014-01 Gold all-time peak of $1,921/oz 2011-09 Egyptian revolution / Mubarak uprising 2011-01 Soviet August coup attempt against Gorbachev 1991-08 Chernobyl disaster 1986-04 Silver Thursday 1980-03 Gold peaks at $850 1980-01 Iran hostage crisis / US freezes Iranian assets 1979-11 Three Mile Island partial meltdown 1979-03 1979 Iranian Revolution oil shock 1979-01 Nixon Shock 1971-08 Smoot-Hawley clears the US House 1929-05
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
INTC INTCSHORT-7.1% · 5d -2.9%89%17 0.73✓ matches cascade
XCU XCUSHORT-4.0% · 5d -0.7%72%14 0.39⚠ differs
FCX FCXSHORT-4.5% · 5d -0.6%72%14 0.37⚠ differs
XPT XPTSHORT-3.0% · 5d -0.7%72%14 0.35⚠ differs
CNY CNYSHORT-0.1% · 5d -0.1%66%14 0.29✓ matches cascade
Volatility VIXLONG+9.2% · 5d +0.6%68%15 0.29·
Gold XAULONG+0.4% · 5d +0.1%66%14 0.28·
QCOM QCOMSHORT-2.8% · 5d -3.2%66%14 0.22✓ matches cascade
US dollar DXYSHORT-0.1% · 5d +0.2% ↺ fades60%22 0.18⚠ differs
Bitcoin BTCSHORT-2.8% · 5d -1.4%61%11 0.16·
10y yield DGS10SHORT-5bp · 5d +0bp58%22 0.15·
AVGO AVGOLONG+1.6% · 5d -2.5% ↺ fades55%14 0.09⚠ differs
XLK XLKLONG+0.3% · 5d -1.2% ↺ fades55%14 0.08⚠ differs
XPD XPDLONG+0.6% · 5d +0.8%55%14 0.08✓ matches cascade

Why this probability

Indonesia consistently moves up the value chain via bans; NPI/intermediate curbs fit the pattern over 18mo. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Crowd odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-07-03.