What if Mega-merger attempt collides with FTC and freezes deal sentiment?
A blocked or litigated pharma mega-deal revives antitrust fears, chilling the M&A bid that underpins biotech valuations and triggering a small-cap biotech pullback.
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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 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. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. A blocked or litigated pharma mega-deal revives antitrust fears, chilling the M&A bid that underpins biotech valuations and triggering a small-cap biotech pullback. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Biotech breakthrough ▼ · Credit spreads ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.