What if drought forces Yunnan to cut aluminium output again?
A Yunnan drought curtailing aluminium smelting again tightens Chinese primary supply — the move is aluminium/alumina higher on lost smelter output, partly offset by the negative China-growth demand read in the cascade. Rhymes with the 2022-23 Yunnan hydropower curtailments that repeatedly cut ~1-2Mt of capacity and supported SHFE aluminium. Forward angle: Yunnan's green-power smelters sit at China's ~45Mt capacity ceiling, so drought-driven cuts now bind against the policy cap — making Chinese aluminium structurally supply-constrained; the cleaner expression is SHFE aluminium and global premiums, not the China-internet equity legs.
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 severe drought forces Yunnan to curtail aluminum smelting again, tightening Chinese primary metal supply sharply. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — China growth ▼ · Industrial demand ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ — 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 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist -6.35–+1.85% · other way +8.32% (n=11) |
| 2 | Wheat WHEATon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.4% hist -1.64–+0.76% · other way -0.55% (n=11) |
| 3 | Corn CORNon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.3% hist -0.2–+0.35% · other way +0.16% (n=11) |
| 4 | China internet KWEBon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -4.38–+0.81% · other way -1.46% (n=8) |
| 5 | Alibaba BABAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.2% hist -2.44–+0.78% · other way -5.17% (n=8) |
| 6 | Platinum XPTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.1% hist -1.64–+0.24% · other way +4.42% (n=11) |
| 7 | Palladium XPDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +0.1% hist -1.41–+0.66% · other way +3.11% (n=11) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XPT XPT | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d +1.0% ↺ fades | 75% | 32 | 0.43 | ⚠ differs |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -3.7% · 5d -2.7% | 69% | 26 | 0.36 | ✓ matches cascade |
| FCX FCX | SHORT | -5.8% · 5d -2.5% | 65% | 34 | 0.27 | ⚠ differs |
| WHEAT WHEAT | SHORT | -1.7% · 5d -2.1% | 59% | 32 | 0.17 | ⚠ differs |
| BABA BABA | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -3.3% | 60% | 25 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 59% | 32 | 0.14 | · |
| XPD XPD | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -1.6% | 56% | 32 | 0.10 | ⚠ differs |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -3.1% · 5d -3.9% | 56% | 25 | 0.10 | · |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.4% · 5d +0.1% | 53% | 40 | 0.06 | · |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +0.4% · 5d +-0.0% ↺ fades | 53% | 32 | 0.05 | · |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -7bp · 5d -6bp | 52% | 40 | 0.04 | · |
| CORN CORN | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.7% | 44% | 32 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +1.0% · 5d +1.3% | 46% | 35 | 0.00 | · |
Why this probability
Yunnan repeatedly curtails aluminum in dry season; a fresh hydropower-driven cut is a recurring pattern. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.