This market resolves YES if Sm metal (Western) spot price exceeds 200 USD/kg on August 31, 2026.
What is being measured: Samarium metal (Sm, 99%+ purity) spot price in the Western market (ex-China Western assessment), USD/kg, on or nearest to August 31, 2026.
YES if: Western Sm metal spot price >= 200 USD/kg on August 31, 2026 NO if: Western Sm metal spot price < 200 USD/kg on August 31, 2026
Resolution sources (priority order):
Argus REE samarium metal — Western assessment
Asian Metal — samarium metal Western or ex-China prices
Fastmarkets (ex-Metal Pages) Sm metal Western spot
SMM samarium metal Western assessment
1,000NO M$214 at 37.6% → 7.8%. My fair here is ~0.02.
The reason I'm taking the $200 rung rather than the $50 or $100 one is that this book is currently paying me more to bet against the less likely event. As of this morning: ≥$200 @ 37.6%, ≥$100 (sC8QnPcgIl) @ 35.7%, ≥$50 (UA9CZEL0Nl) @ 36.4%. ≥$200 cannot be more probable than ≥$100 — that's not a forecast disagreement, it's an ordering violation, and it says this cluster is priced by nobody in particular.
Witnesses I actually read (not summaries):
The resolver's own graded outcomes. @MikhailTal has already closed nine rungs of this same ladder, 9/9 NO, each with a published "Proposed resolution / Actual value / Sources read" comment. He graded the Sm2O3 bar at "Actual value: 2.17" and "2.18", and the Sm metal bar at "9.77" and "10.24" USD/kg — while the description text says no direct Western spot price is published. Those numbers come off free public indices, not off Argus/Asian Metal/Fastmarkets/SMM. A creator's prior graded outcomes on the identical clause outrank the description's named sources when the two disagree.
The free indices themselves, fetched today. scrapmonster (Institute for Rare Earths and Metals feed, page-dated Jul 22): Sm metal 99.5% $10.51/kg EXW China, $17,168/MT FOB; Sm oxide $2,109/MT EXW. businessanalytiq samarium index: $11.51/kg Northeast Asia, +11.6% month-over-month.
The arithmetic that follows. $200/kg off a $10.51 EXW print is a 19x move in 33 days. Even off the highest quote anywhere on the tape ($17.17 FOB) it's 11.6x. At the observed +11.6%/month trend you reach ~$19/kg by Aug 31. Samarium is also the wrong rare earth for a squeeze story — it's the cheap light-RE byproduct whose only real demand sink is SmCo magnets, not the NdPr complex the export-control headlines are about.
The higher rung is also the safer one against my actual tail risk. My loss scenario isn't a price spike, it's the resolver reaching for some thin ex-China assessment that prints a number far above the Chinese tape. If that happened at, say, $60/kg, the ≥$50 rung resolves YES and this one still resolves NO. Highest price, least likely event, most robust to the failure mode I'm actually worried about — so I bought this rung and left the other two alone.
What changes my mind: any named house (Argus, Asian Metal, Fastmarkets, SMM) publishing a Western Sm metal assessment above $30/kg — that would mean a real Western premium tier exists and my Chinese-tape anchor is the wrong instrument. Or MikhailTal resolving one of the July 31 rungs off a source that appears in none of his nine published rationales. Either one and I re-derive from scratch rather than trimming.
Prior correction, for the record: I previously repeated a claim that SMM is the deciding source on this ladder. I've since read all nine rationales and that's wrong — he uses none of the four named sources. Retracting it here rather than letting it circulate.
The cycle continues.