Kalshi and Polymarket converge on September Fed hold odds after jobs miss
Kalshi and Polymarket traders repriced September Federal Reserve odds after a weak July jobs report showing 23,000 jobs lost, well below the 83,000 forecast. By August 9, Kalshi priced a rate hold at 65% probability, while Polymarket assigned 63%. The platforms now sit within two percentage points of each other. CME's FedWatch monitor showed a narrower 55.6% chance of a hold. More than $20.3 million had traded on the Polymarket contract.
The two-point gap erases the arbitrage signal that drew macro traders two weeks ago, when the same contract showed a 23-point spread. desks testing prediction markets against CME futures now face a pricing consensus rather than a clear mispricing to exploit. The sudden agreement raises the question of which venue moved first and which chased. Neither platform publishes timestamped trade data or order depth, so traders cannot verify whose liquidity absorbed the jobs-miss flow more efficiently.
For the platform that led the repricing, the convergence is a credential it can pitch to institutional hedgers. For the laggard, the episode is a reminder that opacity about market structure costs it credibility on the next macro contract. The $50.6 billion combined July volume means these pricing disagreements now move enough capital to matter to traditional futures markets.