What if blockades shut down Peru's southern copper belt?
Las Bambas plus the southern corridor is ~2% of world copper; an indefinite blockade tightens concentrate fast and lifts the metal and Freeport — the VIX/risk-parity deleveraging chain here is overbuilt for a localized supply story. Peru blockades in 2022-23 repeatedly shut Las Bambas yet copper moved on inventories, not equity vol. Transmission: China smelters (the key offtaker) scramble for Chilean/African units, widening TC/RCs. Forward: with Grasberg already impaired (Sep-2025), the concentrate market has no slack.
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 risk-off shock. Indigenous road blockades indefinitely shut Las Bambas and the southern copper corridor amid political collapse. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Copper ▲ · Industrial demand ▲ · Geopolitical risk ▲ — 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 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +2.5% hist -0.56–+10.0% · other way -6.78% (n=11) |
| 2 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.9% hist -5.29–+1.72% · other way +8.32% (n=11) |
| 3 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.8% hist -2.28–+0.87% · other way -0.19% (n=11) |
| 4 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.8% hist -0.57–-0.22% · other way +1.81% (n=11) |
| 5 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.7–+0.02% · other way +1.0% (n=12) |
| 6 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.39–+0.56% · other way +2.57% (n=11) |
| 7 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.3% hist +0.0–+0.4% · other way +1.22% (n=11) |
| 8 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.3–+0.26% · other way +2.75% (n=11) |
| 9 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -1.25–+5.72% · other way +17.3% (n=11) |
| 10 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.19–-0.01% · other way +10.49% (n=11) |
| 11 | Lockheed LMT 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -1.26–+2.74% · other way -4.66% (n=12) |
| 12 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.2% hist -4.07–+1.73% · other way +8.61% (n=8) |
| 13 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -2.13–+0.45% · other way +7.06% (n=11) |
| 14 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -1.3–+3.17% · other way +2.05% (n=9) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on SPX/SMH: +13-22% analogues are the 2025 tariff-shock V-recoveries — equities rebounded fast, masking the Las Bambas copper-blockade risk-off the cascade prices.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 39 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +7.4% · 5d +4.9% | 75% | 24 | 0.45 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +5.0% · 5d -2.5% ↺ fades | 71% | 22 | 0.30 | ⚠ differs |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -2.3% · 5d -1.0% | 67% | 22 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| FCX FCX | SHORT | -5.0% · 5d -2.0% | 66% | 23 | 0.26 | ⚠ differs |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -0.7% | 67% | 29 | 0.25 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLK XLK | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 65% | 22 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.4% | 61% | 21 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -3.8% · 5d -3.6% | 59% | 18 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +3.1% · 5d -1.2% ↺ fades | 59% | 21 | 0.15 | ⚠ differs |
| TSM TSM | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -2.7% | 58% | 23 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.9% · 5d -1.9% | 56% | 27 | 0.10 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SPX SPX | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.7% | 53% | 35 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -1.1% ↺ fades | 54% | 22 | 0.06 | ⚠ differs |
| NVDA NVDA | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -3.9% ↺ fades | 54% | 22 | 0.06 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Peru copper-corridor blockades are near-annual; Las Bambas stoppages recur frequently amid chronic political instability. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.