Glossary

Last updated: June 23, 2026

This site traces chains of cause and effect from physical and political forces down to the companies they touch. That means some jargon. Here is the plain-language version of every term we lean on — written for a curious reader, not a specialist. New here? Start with How to read this site.

How to read this site

Cascade: A chain of cause and effect that starts with a physical or political force and ends at a company you can actually invest in. We trace the whole chain instead of jumping straight to a stock pick.
Driver: The root force at the start of a cascade — something big and slow-moving, like AI electricity demand, an aging power grid, or climate migration. Drivers create pressure downstream.
Chokepoint: A narrow spot in the real economy where that pressure piles up — a material, a part, or a route that is hard to expand quickly. Copper, grid transformers, and the Strait of Hormuz are chokepoints. This is where scarcity (and pricing power) shows up.
Terminal node: The end of the cascade: a specific, listed company or fund that has exposure to the chokepoint. These are the names you could research further — not recommendations, just where the chain points.
Honest read: Our plain-spoken caveat on each node — what could go wrong, what we are unsure about, or why the obvious play may not be tradeable. We would rather flag the risk than hide it.
Drawdown: The worst peak-to-trough drop an investment suffered over the period shown. A '+200% return with a -50% drawdown' means it tripled, but you would have had to stomach losing half along the way.
Liquidity tier: How easily you can trade a security without moving its price. We label each ticker Deep, Liquid, Moderate, Thin, or Very Thin based on its real median daily dollar-volume (see the table below).

Liquidity tiers (what they mean)

Deep: Median trading of roughly $100M+ per day. Trade freely; your order will not move the price.
Liquid: Roughly $20M–$100M per day. Easy to trade for almost any retail size.
Moderate: Roughly $2M–$20M per day. Fine for most, but use limit orders.
Thin: Roughly $250K–$2M per day. Wide spreads; size carefully.
Very Thin: Under ~$250K per day. Real execution risk — a normal order can move the price against you. Treat with caution.

AI & semiconductor terms

CoWoS: “Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate.” The advanced packaging step (dominated by TSMC) that stitches an AI processor to its memory. A bottleneck for AI chip supply.
ABF substrate: A specialized circuit-board material that high-end chips are mounted on. Few firms make it, so it is a quiet chokepoint behind every AI accelerator.
HBM (high-bandwidth memory): Stacked memory chips that sit right next to an AI processor to feed it data fast. Only a handful of makers (SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron) can produce it at scale.
Polysilicon: Ultra-pure silicon, the raw feedstock for both solar panels and semiconductor wafers.
SiC and GaN (power semiconductors): Silicon-carbide and gallium-nitride chips that handle high voltage efficiently — key for EVs, fast chargers, and data-center power.
EUV lithography: Extreme-ultraviolet machines (made only by ASML) that print the smallest, most advanced chips. The single most concentrated chokepoint in tech.

Energy & grid terms

Baseload: Power that runs around the clock regardless of weather — historically coal and nuclear. AI data centers need baseload, which is why nuclear keeps reappearing in these cascades.
Grid transformer: The large device that steps voltage up or down so electricity can travel and be used. Lead times now stretch past two years, making it a hard infrastructure bottleneck.
HVDC: High-voltage direct current — the long-distance, low-loss way to move large amounts of power, including subsea between countries.
Electrical steel (GOES / NOES): Grain-oriented and non-oriented electrical steel — the specialized steel inside transformers and motors. Few mills make it.
SMR (small modular reactor): A smaller, factory-built nuclear reactor design meant to be cheaper and faster to deploy than a traditional plant.
SWU / enrichment: “Separative work units,” the measure of effort to enrich uranium into reactor fuel. Enrichment capacity is a chokepoint controlled by a few players.

Materials & mining terms

Ore grade: How much metal sits in a tonne of rock. Falling grades (copper grades are down roughly 40% since 1991) mean miners must dig more rock for the same metal — a slow, structural squeeze.
Rare earths (NdPr, heavies): A group of metals essential to permanent magnets in motors, wind turbines, and missiles. NdPr (neodymium-praseodymium) are the workhorse light rare earths; 'heavies' like dysprosium are scarcer and mostly refined in China.
Permanent magnet: A magnet made with rare earths that keeps its strength without power — the heart of EV motors, wind turbines, and guided weapons.
PGMs (platinum-group metals): Platinum, palladium, rhodium and related metals used in catalysts and electronics; supply is concentrated in South Africa and Russia.
Elemental phosphorus (P4): The purified form of phosphorus behind both fertilizer and many chemicals; production is concentrated and energy-intensive.
Phosphate rock / DAP / MAP: The mined source of phosphorus fertilizer (DAP and MAP are the two main finished fertilizer products). A food-security chokepoint.
HPMSM: High-purity manganese sulfate monohydrate — the battery-grade form of manganese used in many EV cathodes.
Class-1 nickel: Nickel pure enough for batteries (as opposed to lower-grade nickel used in steel). The battery-grade supply is tighter than the headline nickel market.

Liquidity figures are sourced from market data (median daily dollar-volume) and can change over time. The tiers are a tradeability guide, not a recommendation. See the Methodology for how tickers are screened, and the Disclaimer for the full not-investment-advice terms.