🛢 Energy & Commodities mixed · 0–6 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Myanmar's rare-earth mines collapse in the civil war?

Kachin flooding shutting Myanmar's heavy-rare-earth mines that feed China's separation plants spikes dysprosium and terbium — the move is HREE magnet-input prices and defense/EV-motor costs higher; the TSMC/ASML semis cascade is the wrong channel since HREEs go into magnets, not chips. Rhymes with the 2023-24 Myanmar supply disruptions that lifted Dy/Tb and the 2010 China rare-earth embargo. Forward angle: Myanmar supplies ~half of China's heavy-REE feed, so this paradoxically tightens China's own magnet output — the squeeze hits magnet buyers (autos, wind, defense) globally; MP Materials/Lynas equities are the beneficiaries.

20%
our model probability
over 0–6 months
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 20% · 90% range 4–36% · 40 analogues · measured class defense 46% in 6 mo · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — defense ≈1.2155/yr → 46% in 6 mo46%
Analyst prior · editorial share 48% of the class22%
Pooled · weight 87%21%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)21%
Published20%

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.

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. Civil-war flooding shuts Kachin heavy-rare-earth mines that feed China's separation plants, spiking dysprosium and terbium. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Defense spending ▲ · Trade tension ▲ · 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.

MarketClassProjected move
1Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chartIndex▼ -1.5%
hist -0.9–-0.49% · other way +1.81% (n=11)
2Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.3%
hist -0.91–-0.41% · other way +2.75% (n=11)
3Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.2%
hist -0.85–-0.15% · other way +10.49% (n=11)
4TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.1%
hist -1.42–-0.06% · other way +4.87% (n=11)
5Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.9%
hist -0.62–-0.32% · other way -5.17% (n=8)
6Tech sector XLK 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.0%
hist -0.62–-0.14% · other way +2.57% (n=11)
7AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.9%
hist -1.52–+1.79% · other way +7.06% (n=11)
8Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.9%
hist -1.08–+1.68% · other way +2.05% (n=9)
9Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.9%
hist -1.62–+0.2% · other way +7.93% (n=11)
10Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.9%
hist -2.28–+0.34% · other way +12.35% (n=11)
11ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.8%
hist -3.32–+0.98% · other way +2.4% (n=11)
12Chinese yuan CNY 📈 chartFX▼ -0.7%
hist -0.7–-0.09% · other way -0.17% (n=10)
13Lockheed LMT 📈 chartEquity▲ +0.7%
hist -0.06–+1.1% · other way -4.66% (n=12)
14Northrop NOC 📈 chartEquity▲ +0.6%
hist -0.32–+0.58% · other way +0.22% (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): Tech sector -1.0% · Chinese yuan -0.7% · Lockheed +0.7% · Northrop +0.6% · Aussie dollar -0.3% · Turkish lira -0.2%

Why we may diverge from history

Trust the cascade short on MSTR/AVGO: history's gains are the AI/crypto bull regime (April-2025 tariff windows +31-65%) — a Myanmar rare-earth shock can't lift these names; realized history reflects the regime.

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.

China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 Israel strikes Iran — Operation Rising Lion 2025-06 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 OPEC abandons output defense, opting for market share vs US shale 2014-11 Egyptian revolution / Mubarak uprising 2011-01 Soviet August coup attempt against Gorbachev 1991-08 Gold peaks at $850 1980-01 Iran hostage crisis / US freezes Iranian assets 1979-11 Smoot-Hawley clears the US House 1929-05 Gold tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 US-China extend tariff truce by another 90 days 2025-08 Trump's 50% copper tariff sends Comex copper to a record 2025-07 US and China agree Geneva tariff truce, slashing rates 2025-05 Operation Sindoor: India strikes Pakistan after Pahalgam attack 2025-05 October 2024 Iranian ballistic-missile attack on Israel 2024-10 Hezbollah pager and device explosions across Lebanon 2024-09 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 Trump 'Taiwan should pay for defense' chip selloff 2024-07 RTX takes $3B charge on Pratt & Whitney GTF engine flaw 2023-09 Niger coup d'etat 2023-07 Wagner Group mutiny against the Kremlin 2023-06 China fires ballistic missiles into Japan's EEZ during Taiwan drills 2022-08 Tin hits nominal record on LME above $48,000/t 2022-03 Burkina Faso coup d'etat 2022-01 Mali coup d'etat 2020-08 Gold closes above $2,000/oz for the first time 2020-08 Saudi-Russia oil price war 2020-03 India's Balakot airstrike inside Pakistan 2019-02 Pulwama attack ignites India-Pakistan crisis 2019-02 Bitcoin Cash hash war capitulation 2018-11 US List 3 tariffs on $200B of Chinese goods finalized 2018-09 Turkish lira crisis 2018-08 US Section 301 List 1 tariffs take effect on China 2018-07 China retaliates: $50B tariff list incl. soybeans 2018-04 US Section 232 steel & aluminum tariffs imposed 2018-03 Mexican peso crash on Trump 2016 win 2016-11
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
TRY TRYSHORT-1.7% · 5d +0.3% ↺ fades74%36 0.39✓ matches cascade
INTC INTCSHORT-4.2% · 5d -1.7%66%37 0.29✓ matches cascade
CNY CNYSHORT-0.3% · 5d -0.1%62%36 0.24✓ matches cascade
ETH ETHSHORT-2.9% · 5d -4.2%62%31 0.20✓ matches cascade
10y yield DGS10LONG+12bp · 5d +7bp60%39 0.19·
MRVL MRVLSHORT-1.7% · 5d -2.9%62%36 0.17✓ matches cascade
High-yield credit HYGSHORT-0.4% · 5d -0.2%61%36 0.17·
AVGO AVGOLONG+2.0% · 5d -2.1% ↺ fades59%36 0.15⚠ differs
KWEB KWEBSHORT-0.8% · 5d -2.0%59%35 0.15✓ matches cascade
AUD AUDSHORT-0.8% · 5d -0.4%59%36 0.13✓ matches cascade
XLK XLKLONG+0.2% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades57%36 0.11⚠ differs
QCOM QCOMSHORT-2.3% · 5d -2.3%57%36 0.11✓ matches cascade
RTX RTXSHORT-0.5% · 5d -0.8%56%39 0.11⚠ differs
Volatility VIXLONG+4.2% · 5d +0.1%56%37 0.11·

Why this probability

Kachin mines flood seasonally amid civil war; a supply-spiking shutdown within 6mo is plausible. 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.