What if Indonesian ore-grade decline tightens the nickel pig-iron market?
Falling laterite ore grades and a wet-season ore shortage squeeze nickel pig-iron output, lifting the NPI-to-class-1 spread and feeding through to stainless and battery-input costs.
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 mixed shock. Falling laterite ore grades and a wet-season ore shortage squeeze nickel pig-iron output, lifting the NPI-to-class-1 spread and feeding through to stainless and battery-input costs. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Clean-energy abundance ▲ · Industrial demand ▲ · Inflation surprise ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — 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 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist -2.58–+0.86% · other way -4.33% (n=11) |
| 2 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.57–+0.28% · other way -3.24% (n=11) |
| 3 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.2% hist -2.95–+0.68% · other way -5.19% (n=11) |
| 4 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.06–+0.33% · other way -0.93% (n=12) |
| 5 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.2% hist -2.42–+0.45% · other way -5.24% (n=11) |
| 6 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.1% hist -3.35–+0.67% · other way -0.98% (n=11) |
| 7 | 30y Treasury yield DGS30 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +1bp hist -0.65–+2.92% · other way +18.9% (n=12) |
| 8 | 10y Treasury yield DGS10 📈 chart | Rate | ▲ +1bp hist -0.73–+2.82% · other way +17.4% (n=12) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -1.0% | 70% | 31 | 0.36 | ⚠ differs |
| CL CL | SHORT | -2.0% · 5d -3.2% | 69% | 31 | 0.33 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -1.3% · 5d -1.4% | 67% | 31 | 0.32 | ✓ matches cascade |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -2.5% · 5d -3.2% | 66% | 31 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| FCX FCX | SHORT | -2.4% · 5d -1.3% | 64% | 31 | 0.25 | ⚠ differs |
| XOM XOM | SHORT | -0.9% · 5d -1.3% | 55% | 40 | 0.10 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 55% | 31 | 0.09 | · |
| 30y yield DGS30 | LONG | +2bp · 5d +2bp | 53% | 40 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d +1.4% ↺ fades | 52% | 33 | 0.04 | · |
| Gold XAU | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.8% | 52% | 31 | 0.03 | · |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.4% · 5d +0.2% | 52% | 40 | 0.03 | · |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +2bp · 5d +4bp | 46% | 40 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | LONG | +1.2% · 5d -3.3% ↺ fades | 40% | 23 | 0.00 | · |