What if the smartphone upgrade super-cycle stalls?
A double-digit handset-unit downturn from upgrade fatigue drags Apple, Qualcomm and the supply chain — a cyclical-demand miss, so the tape is moderate risk-off with VIX up, not a systemic break. The analogue is the 2018–19 and 2022 smartphone slumps that hit Qualcomm/Skyworks and Apple unit guidance. Forward angle: an on-device-AI 'must-upgrade' cycle is the bull offset — if it fails to materialize, the replacement-cycle lengthening structurally caps Apple hardware growth, not just a one-year air-pocket.
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 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 global upgrade-fatigue downturn cuts handset units double digits, dragging Apple, Qualcomm, and the supply chain. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Growth surprise ▼ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.