What if a contamination disaster idles TSMC's Arizona fab for months?
A months-long contamination shutdown of TSMC's flagship US fab is a hard advanced-chip supply choke — the deepest semi shock in this set, hitting NVDA and TSMC ~2%+ as customer allocations are cut. Rhymes with past fab contamination events (TSMC's 2019 photoresist incident, Renesas' 2021 fire) that idled output and rippled through customers. Forward angle: Arizona is still a small share of TSMC volume, so Taiwan capacity cushions the blow — the bigger signal is reshoring-resilience doubt than an aggregate supply cliff.
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 mixed shock. A contamination event idles TSMC's flagship US fab for months, choking advanced-chip supply for top customers. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▼ · Semiconductor supply 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 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -1.71–-0.12% · other way +1.64% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -1.52–-0.5% · other way +4.13% (n=12) |
| 3 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -2.71–+0.47% · other way -0.91% (n=12) |
| 4 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -0.85–+0.21% · other way +1.4% (n=12) |
| 5 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -1.27–+0.75% · other way +5.76% (n=12) |
| 6 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -3.76–+0.43% · other way -1.7% (n=12) |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.75–-0.16% · other way -2.72% (n=12) |
| 8 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -1.15–+1.7% · other way -0.28% (n=12) |
| 9 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.6% hist -2.3–+0.62% · other way -3.2% (n=12) |
| 10 | Intel INTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -5.27–+1.16% · other way -2.6% (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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -4.4% · 5d -3.1% | 65% | 40 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -2.8% · 5d -3.1% | 69% | 40 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 63% | 40 | 0.22 | · |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -2.1% | 61% | 40 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -4.3% · 5d -3.1% | 61% | 40 | 0.17 | · |
| US dollar DXY | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -0.0% | 59% | 40 | 0.16 | · |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -0.7% ↺ fades | 57% | 40 | 0.13 | ⚠ differs |
| MRVL MRVL | LONG | +2.0% · 5d -1.9% ↺ fades | 57% | 40 | 0.11 | ⚠ differs |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -2.6% | 55% | 40 | 0.08 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +0.7% · 5d -0.8% ↺ fades | 51% | 40 | 0.02 | · |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -1bp · 5d +2bp ↺ fades | 51% | 40 | 0.02 | · |
| TSM TSM | LONG | +0.8% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 47% | 40 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| NVDA NVDA | LONG | +0.4% · 5d -3.2% ↺ fades | 39% | 40 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| ASML ASML | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -2.4% | 47% | 40 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Fab contamination idling Arizona for months is rare tail; 0-6mo window low base rate. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.