Fed hike at 45.5%, two cuts at 4.4%: the easing case fades
Saturday, August 15, 2026 · Edition 1
The Fed board is arguing with itself. A hike in 2026 sits at 45.5%, nearly a coin flip, while exactly two cuts is priced at 4.4%. Read together, the modal path the board favors is a hold or a hike, not the easing cycle much of retail still pencils in. Elsewhere, the flows are louder than the prices.
💵 Macro
Fed rate hike in 2026?
At 45.5%, a 2026 hike is nearly a coin flip, down 9 points in a month, the sixth-biggest reprice on today's board. The tension is with the market next door: exactly two cuts trades at just 4.4%. If both prices are right, the easing case has quietly evaporated, and what is left is a hold or a hike. Not the direction most narratives assume.
Will 2 Fed rate cuts happen in 2026?
4.4%, and today's volume ran 5.5x its weekly average. The number matters most beside the hike market: with a hike near 50/50 and two cuts all but ruled out, the board leans toward a Fed that stays put or tightens. The clean two-cut easing path many still expect is the least-priced outcome here.
⚙️ Tech
Will Anthropic's valuation hit (HIGH) $3.0T by December 31?
29.5%, up 18.5 points in a month, the second-biggest mover on the board. Set that against the IPO market at 69.5% and a curious picture emerges: the board heavily favors Anthropic going public this year while leaning against a $3T print. Together those prices imply the consensus lands on an IPO that clears well below $3T.
Will Alphabet be the largest company in the world by market cap on August 31?
1.2%, down 10.8 points in a month, the third-biggest reprice on the board. Two weeks out, the board treats Alphabet holding the crown as all but ruled out. The signal is in the speed: a double-digit collapse on a question that was live a month ago says the pecking order at the top hardened fast.
🗳️ Politics
Will Marco Rubio win the 2028 US Presidential Election?
$245k changed hands in 24 hours against a roughly $8k daily baseline, and the price sat still at 13.1%. Vance drew $67k on a ~$11k baseline without moving off 23%, Ossoff $66k on ~$3k at 9.4%, Newsom $50k on ~$10k at 9%. Four names in the same field, all absorbing outsized flow, all flat. Size moved; conviction, apparently, did not.
🌍 Geopolitics
Putin out as President of Russia by December 31, 2026?
7.5%, unchanged, on $196k in 24 hours against a ~$22k daily baseline. Nearly 9x its normal flow with the price frozen. On a geopolitically quiet board, a volume spike this large that leaves the number untouched is the anomaly worth noting, not the level itself.
Will a US ally get a nuke before 2027?
5.9%, flat, on $46k in 24 hours against a baseline near zero. This is a market that barely trades, and today it did. The price stayed put on a question that, were it ever to move, would be one of the most consequential of the decade. The flow arrived; the odds did not budge.
Two Fed markets disagree with the easing narrative, and half a dozen others took in real money without printing a single new opinion. The prices held. The flows did not ask permission.
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