Polymarket Odds Today: Fed Hike, Bitcoin, Apple vs Nvidia, World Series

Market Of The Day: Fed Decision In October

No change is at 76% (-316) and a 25 basis point hike is at 24% (+317), in a market with $40.1 million traded. That hike price was 20% late on Tuesday.

The news is Wednesday's consumer price report. Prices rose 3.7% in the year to September, against a 3.6% consensus and 3.4% in August, with gasoline up 9.1% on the month. The part that matters to the Fed was core inflation, which rose 0.3% on the month against 0.2% expected and 2.6% on the year against 2.5%. The Fed raised its target range to 3.75%-4% in September, its first increase since 2023, and Chair Kevin Warsh's committee meets on Oct. 27-28.

The futures market reacted far more than Polymarket did. CME FedWatch put the October hike at between about 37% and 44% on Wednesday, depending on the time of day, up from about 22% before the report. The case against a hike is the calendar: the decision lands six days before the Nov. 3 midterms, and the Fed has raised rates that close to an election only once since 1990, in November 2022. UBS has called an October move "politically untenable," and Reuters reported on Oct. 3 that the Fed may wait for December. Capital Economics thinks October is in play. The next data point is this morning's producer prices and retail sales, at 8:30 a.m. ET.