What if rhodium melts up to a new record?
Thin, illiquid rhodium spot means a small autocatalyst shortfall produces a parabolic mark — the move is idiosyncratic to rhodium and PGM miners (Anglo Platinum, Sibanye), with copper a weak read-through. Rhymes with the 2020-21 rhodium melt-up to ~$29,000/oz on tight supply and the 2008 spike, both of which round-tripped violently. Forward angle: tightening gasoline-vehicle catalyst demand into EV penetration makes any spike more fragile than 2021 — fade rallies rather than chase.
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 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. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. Tightening autocatalyst rhodium supply triggers a parabolic squeeze past prior records on thin, illiquid spot trading. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Industrial demand ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.