SPY closed Friday at a record $773.26, and the dip bracket that was a coin flip eight days ago now trades at 13 cents. The August board asks what levels SPY touches at any point in the month.
On August 3, the $730 low sat at 52%, and the $770 high sat at 41%. Since then, $770 has settled Yes and $730 has fallen to 12.5%.
That's a 40-point move in eight sessions.
The market asks one thing: what level does SPY hit at any point in August at Polymarket?
Let's further examine how you can trade contracts with our Polymarket promo code for the S&P 500 market in August.
Monthly S&P 500 Tracker: Polymarket Odds
S&P 500 Monthly Performance Prediction
The shape of the downside changed with it. $730 (−5.6%) is 12.5%, $720 is 8%, $710 is 6%, $700 is 3.9%, $690 is 3.1%.
A week ago, that ladder had a cliff in it: 52% at $730 dropping to 29% at $720, a 23-point step. Now no gap between the downside buckets is bigger than 4 points.
The catalyst was a bad number. July payrolls printed a loss of 23,000 jobs against the 83,000 gain economists expected, with unemployment at 4.1%.
Stocks rallied on it, because a contracting labor market takes the hike off the table. Futures cut the odds of a September hike to 44%, the 2-year yield fell to 4.193% and the S&P 500 closed the week at a record 7,758, its strongest week since April.
The inflation input eased underneath that. Brent is back to $84.68 after the $90.74 close on July 29, with the Strait of Hormuz still shut and Iran holding its reopening conditions. July CPI comes on Wednesday, with headline expected at 3.4% annual against 3.5% in June and core at 2.5%.
Polymarket runs a weekly board next to the monthly one, and the two disagree.
The week-of-August-10 $780 high trades at 51%. The August $780 high trades at 64.5%.
Back out the conditional and the board is saying this: if SPY does not tag $780 by Friday, it gives the level a 28% chance across the eleven sessions after.
Those eleven sessions carry Nvidia on August 26 and Jackson Hole on August 27 to 29. JPMorgan's strategists raised their S&P target to 8,000 on Monday, roughly 3% above Friday's close.
The rest of the upside ladder is priced with the same reluctance. $790 (+2.2%) is 43.7% and $800 (+3.5%) is 21.9%.
What's interesting is where the money still sits. Of the brackets still live, the downside holds about $37,600 in volume against $29,100 on the upside, and the $690 low has taken more money than either the $710 or the $700 low.
Monday held the record level but didn’t gain anything, the S&P finished at 7,751.86, down 0.07%, with energy up 4.46% on the oil bid and Nvidia and Apple both off about 2%.
That is the standoff the CPI print will likely resolve one way or another. A 3.4% headline inflation print keeps the hike dead. A hot core inflation number puts September hike back in play and odds for the lower strikes will rise.
The Trade
The August $780 Yes at 65 cents is the buy. SPY closed at a record Friday and needs to trade 0.9% higher at some point in the next fifteen sessions for it to resolve YES.
Here is why it looks cheap: the weekly contract gives that same touch a 51% shot by Friday alone, so you are paying 14 cents for the eleven sessions after, and those sessions hold Nvidia earnings and Jackson Hole. What kills it is a hot core CPI on Wednesday that puts the September hike back on the table and knocks the whole upper ladder down.
Not financial advice.
