Three of five this week. Both misses were risks we named in print before the games, and the data were in.
| # | Market | Platform | Our call | Score | Market price at publish | Actual result | Hit / Miss | What moved it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | August payrolls above 50K | Kalshi | NO | 30 | Yes 49c / No 52c | Payrolls rose 162,000 | Miss | A clean private-sector rebound plus a smaller government drag, exactly the scenario our own risk note flagged |
| 2 | August jobless rate above 4.1% | Kalshi | NO | 35 | Yes 60c / No 40c | Rate held at 4.1% | Hit | Household survey noise stayed inside our error bars this time |
| 3 | Colorado beats Georgia Tech | Polymarket | NO | 25 | Yes 33c / No 68c | Colorado won 14-13 | Miss | Two first-time starters made it the close, low-scoring game we said it could be, and Colorado won that version |
| 4 | WILDCHILD first week above 70K | Kalshi | YES | 70 | Yes 65c / No 40c | Opened with 75,000 units | Hit | Vinyl and CD variants pushed album sales to 55,000 of the total |
| 5 | Hormuz transits 20-39 this week | Polymarket | YES | 70 | Yes 73c / No 28c | Provisional: Polymarket has this at 74% for our bin, not yet formally settled | Hit (provisional) | Traffic held in the mid-20s to low-30s range we modeled from the daily run rate |
August payrolls above 50K. Nonfarm payrolls rose 162,000 in August, the biggest gain in five months and well clear of both our call and the Dow Jones consensus of 53,000. We built the NO case on a shrinking labor force and a weak July print. Our own risk note said a clean private-sector month with a lighter government drag “clears 50,000 easily.” That’s exactly what happened. Not bad luck: the outcome we flagged as possible and bet against anyway.
August jobless rate above 4.1%. The rate held at 4.1%, unchanged from July, and our NO call landed. Labor force participation ticked up to 61.6% instead of continuing to fall, a healthier read than the one we had going in.
Colorado beats Georgia Tech. Colorado won 14-13 in Atlanta. We called Georgia Tech, reasoning that a rebuilt Colorado defense and a new starting quarterback made this a longer rebuild than the 6.5-point spread implied. Our risk note said two first-time starters usually means a tighter game than the line suggests. It was tighter by one point, and Colorado came out on the right side of it.
WILDCHILD first week above 70K. Alex Warren’s sophomore album opened at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 75,000 equivalent units, clearing our line and posting his best sales week yet. Album sales alone hit 55,000, driven by thirteen vinyl variants and five CD editions, the kind of physical-format push that outperforms a streaming-only debut.
Hormuz transits 20-39 this week. This one carries an asterisk. Polymarket’s contract for the week of August 31 has not formally settled as of this writing; the 20-39 bin is trading at 74 cents against 28 cents for the next bin down, about as close to a lock as an unsettled market gets. We’re counting it provisionally and will correct the record next week if the final IMF PortWatch print says otherwise.
Three of five counting the provisional call, two of four confirmed. That puts the running total at 13 of 19 across four graded editions, not counting Hormuz until it settles. Neither miss came from a thin call: payrolls carried a 19-point gap from the market price and Colorado an 8-point gap, both inside our normal confidence range.
A wide gap from the crowd isn’t the same as being right. It just means we disagreed more, and this week the crowd had it.
