What if Strategic cobalt stockpiling by the US and EU tightens the spot?
Government strategic-reserve purchases of cobalt for defense and EV security pull metal off the market, tightening the spot balance and firming prices despite weak cell demand.
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 1–3 years 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 mixed shock. Government strategic-reserve purchases of cobalt for defense and EV security pull metal off the market, tightening the spot balance and firming prices despite weak cell demand. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Clean-energy abundance ▲ · Defense spending ▲ · Industrial demand ▲ · 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 | Lockheed LMT 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.5% hist +0.17–+0.29% · other way -0.08% (n=12) |
| 2 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.88–+0.11% · other way +0.68% (n=7) |
| 3 | Northrop NOC 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.5% hist -0.69–+0.36% · other way -0.19% (n=8) |
| 4 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.4% hist -2.19–+0.72% · other way -1.42% (n=7) |
| 5 | RTX RTXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.4% hist -1.55–+0.86% · other way -0.21% (n=12) |
| 6 | ExxonMobil XOM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -0.38–-0.09% · other way +1.59% (n=12) |
| 7 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▼ -0.4% hist -2.3–+0.7% · other way -3.37% (n=7) |
| 8 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist -0.73–+1.95% · other way +0.39% (n=7) |
| 9 | United Airlines UAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -1.59–+3.46% · other way +0.48% (n=7) |
| 10 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▲ +0.2% model prior · unmeasured |
| 11 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▲ +0.1% hist -0.23–+0.22% · other way -6.28% (n=7) |
| 12 | Chevron CVX 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -0.3–+0.03% · other way -0.86% (n=12) |
| 13 | Copper XCUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.1% hist -0.96–+0.5% · other way -1.21% (n=7) |
| 14 | Delta DAL 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -1.31–+3.63% · other way +0.15% (n=7) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -0.4% | 66% | 27 | 0.30 | · |
| NOC NOC | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -0.8% | 65% | 37 | 0.27 | ⚠ differs |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.0% · 5d +0.1% | 63% | 40 | 0.22 | · |
| Bitcoin BTC | LONG | +3.5% · 5d -3.4% ↺ fades | 62% | 24 | 0.19 | · |
| LMT LMT | SHORT | -0.0% · 5d -0.8% | 58% | 40 | 0.13 | ⚠ differs |
| DAL DAL | LONG | +3.3% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 57% | 27 | 0.13 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +11bp · 5d +8bp | 57% | 40 | 0.13 | · |
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d -1.5% | 56% | 40 | 0.12 | ⚠ differs |
| CL CL | SHORT | -2.0% · 5d -2.4% | 57% | 29 | 0.12 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -1.1% | 55% | 29 | 0.09 | ⚠ differs |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -8.2% | 55% | 18 | 0.07 | ⚠ differs |
| BRENT BRENT | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -2.2% | 54% | 27 | 0.06 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLE XLE | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.7% | 52% | 31 | 0.03 | ✓ matches cascade |
| FCX FCX | LONG | +1.7% · 5d -1.9% ↺ fades | 51% | 33 | 0.02 | ✓ matches cascade |