What if antitrust forces the breakup of a Big Tech monopoly?
A forced mega-cap breakup is idiosyncratic, not systemic: the clean read is an AI-capex air-pocket hitting Nvidia and the custom-silicon/memory chain (Broadcom, Micron) as hyperscaler spend intentions wobble. The COVID circuit-breaker analogues are mis-fit; the better rhyme is the 1984 AT&T breakup, where the parts ultimately outperformed but the complex de-rated first. Forward angle: a breakup can unlock value over time, so this is a duration/timing trade, not a durable short.
Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.
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 (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 3–10 years 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. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. Antitrust forces the breakup of a top-tech monopoly. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▼ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.