What if a fire halts America's only rare-earth refinery?
A fire halting Mountain Pass's only US separation line re-exposes total Western reliance on Chinese rare-earth processing — the move is NdPr/magnet supply anxiety and a bid for ex-China alternatives (Lynas), with the semis/TSMC cascade again the wrong transmission. Rhymes with the 2010 rare-earth crisis and recurrent China export-control scares. Forward angle: unlike 2010, Mountain Pass mines but still ships concentrate to China for separation, so a fire mainly disrupts the nascent US midstream — the durable read is faster DoD funding for domestic separation and a Lynas/MP premium, not a broad tech rout.
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 mixed shock. A fire halts America's only operating rare-earth separation line, re-exposing total Western dependence on China. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Trade tension ▲ · Defense spending ▲ · 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 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.5% hist -0.9–-0.49% · other way +1.81% (n=11) |
| 2 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -0.91–-0.41% · other way +2.75% (n=11) |
| 3 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -0.85–-0.15% · other way +10.49% (n=11) |
| 4 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -1.42–-0.06% · other way +4.87% (n=11) |
| 5 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.62–-0.32% · other way -5.17% (n=8) |
| 6 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.0% hist -0.62–-0.14% · other way +2.57% (n=11) |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.52–+1.79% · other way +7.06% (n=11) |
| 8 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.08–+1.68% · other way +2.05% (n=9) |
| 9 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.62–+0.2% · other way +7.93% (n=11) |
| 10 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -2.28–+0.34% · other way +12.35% (n=11) |
| 11 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -3.32–+0.98% · other way +2.4% (n=11) |
| 12 | Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chart | FX | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.7–-0.09% · other way -0.17% (n=10) |
| 13 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.6% hist -2.75–+0.74% · other way -0.53% (n=11) |
| 14 | Lockheed LMT 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.5% hist -0.13–+0.99% · other way -4.66% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on MSTR/AVGO: a Mountain Pass fire has no crypto or chip channel — history's +4.6-8.8% is April-2025 tariff-window regime contamination during the AI/BTC bull, not this shock.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d +0.3% ↺ fades | 74% | 36 | 0.39 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -1.7% | 66% | 37 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 36 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -4.2% | 62% | 31 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +12bp · 5d +7bp | 60% | 39 | 0.19 | · |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d -2.9% | 62% | 36 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.2% | 61% | 36 | 0.17 | · |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +2.0% · 5d -2.1% ↺ fades | 59% | 36 | 0.15 | ⚠ differs |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -2.0% | 59% | 35 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -0.4% | 59% | 36 | 0.13 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLK XLK | LONG | +0.2% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades | 57% | 36 | 0.11 | ⚠ differs |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -2.3% · 5d -2.3% | 57% | 36 | 0.11 | ✓ matches cascade |
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.8% | 56% | 39 | 0.11 | ⚠ differs |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +4.2% · 5d +0.1% | 56% | 37 | 0.11 | · |
Why this probability
A specific fire crippling the sole Mountain Pass line is a rare one-off industrial accident. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.