What if the leading US small modular reactor project is cancelled?
Cost overruns killing the leading US SMR project freeze utility orders and crash SMR equities, read across as an AI-capex/power-supply setback plus risk-off into Nasdaq and high-beta crypto. Direct analogue: NuScale/UAMPS cancellation (Nov 2023), which gutted the name and chilled the sector. Forward angle: if SMRs slip, the AI power gap gets backfilled by gas turbines and grid gas — so this is bearish nuclear-equity but quietly bullish natural-gas demand, a pair the cascade misses.
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 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. 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. Cost overruns kill the leading US small-modular-reactor project, freezing utility orders and crashing SMR equities. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▼ · Risk appetite ▼ — 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 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -1.78–+0.03% · other way +4.26% (n=12) |
| 2 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.76–+0.07% · other way +6.0% (n=12) |
| 3 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -2.42–+0.35% · other way -0.9% (n=12) |
| 4 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.51–-0.23% · other way +1.68% (n=12) |
| 5 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.5% hist -3.52–+0.87% · other way -16.06% (n=11) |
| 6 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -0.4% model prior · unmeasured |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.31–-0.11% · other way -2.83% (n=12) |
| 8 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.45–+0.32% · other way +2.02% (n=12) |
| 9 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.48–+0.57% · other way +0.14% (n=12) |
| 10 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -2.24–+4.63% · other way +8.02% (n=12) |
| 11 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.4% hist -6.27–+1.99% · other way +0.31% (n=11) |
| 12 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -2.88–+1.16% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 13 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.3% hist -0.68–+0.09% · other way +0.08% (n=12) |
| 14 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.3% hist -3.27–+1.15% · other way -2.61% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MU MU | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -2.7% | 64% | 40 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.0% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 62% | 40 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.0% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 62% | 40 | 0.20 | · |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -5.5% | 63% | 38 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -2.0% | 60% | 40 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -5.6% · 5d -4.1% | 61% | 39 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -1.8% | 61% | 39 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -3.5% | 60% | 40 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | LONG | +0.8% · 5d -1.5% ↺ fades | 57% | 40 | 0.10 | ⚠ differs |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -3.1% | 57% | 40 | 0.10 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +4.7% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades | 55% | 40 | 0.09 | ⚠ differs |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -1.2% | 57% | 40 | 0.09 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLK XLK | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.8% | 55% | 40 | 0.07 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TSM TSM | LONG | +0.5% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 53% | 40 | 0.05 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
SMR cost overruns common (NuScale precedent); flagship-killing cancellation plausible but not base. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.