Report date 2026-06-06 · Category Economics · Horizon 45 days · Capital $1,000
A deep screen of every active Kalshi Economics market closing before 21 Jul 2026. The headline finding is uncomfortable but honest: this slate is mostly efficient. The macro-data markets here track public releases (CPI, PPI, payrolls, Treasury yields, AAA gas) that sharp traders price tightly. After diligence I deploy capital on one core edge and one small asymmetric lottery, and hold a deliberately large cash reserve rather than force money into fairly-priced contracts.
status='active' markets whose event category='Economics' closing within 45 days — 400+ markets, mostly micro-strike ladders (gas, CPI, Treasury, housing).market_snapshots row per market and cut everything with volume24h < 1500, bid-ask spread > 5¢, or already pinned (YES bid ≥95 / ask ≤5). That left 26 candidates.rules text for each. Two definitional traps surfaced immediately: (a) CPI markets resolve on the one-decimal BLS print, so ">4.2%" actually needs a 4.3% print; (b) some Treasury legs say "before month-end" (a touch / high-water-mark) while others say "at month-end" (a level).26 liquidity-screened candidates. Prices are live Kalshi top-of-book at audit time (¢). "Verdict" links to the pick or the reject rationale.
| Ticker | Market | YES bid/ask | Vol24h | Closes | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KXCPIYOY-26MAY-T4.2 | May CPI YoY >4.2% (needs 4.3% print) | 46 / 50 | 5,691 | Jun 10 | PICK 1 · BUY NO |
| KXAAAGASW-26JUN08-4.160 | AAA US gas >$4.160 on Jun 8 | 92 / 93 | 15,054 | Jun 8 | PICK 2 · BUY NO (lotto) |
| KXCPIYOY-26MAY-T4.1 | May CPI YoY >4.1% (needs 4.2% print) | 89 / 90 | 4,115 | Jun 10 | PASS — hot tape backs YES |
| KXCPI-26MAY-T0.5 | May CPI MoM >0.5% | 29 / 30 | 7,170 | Jun 10 | PASS — ~fair vs nowcast |
| KXAAAGASW-26JUN08-4.170 | AAA US gas >$4.170 on Jun 8 | 51 / 53 | 14,776 | Jun 8 | PASS — priced on the landing |
| KXAAAGASW-26JUN08-4.180 | AAA US gas >$4.180 on Jun 8 | 23 / 25 | 16,293 | Jun 8 | PASS — priced on the landing |
| KXMUSKNW-26JUN30-T790 | Musk net worth >$790B (Bloomberg) | 88 / 91 | 5,188 | Jun 30 | WATCH — SpaceX IPO ≈ fair |
| KXUSPPIYOY-26JUN11-T6.0 | May PPI YoY >6.0% | 49 / 51 | 1,925 | Jun 11 | PASS — genuine coin-flip |
| KXUSGASCPI-26JUN10-T378 | May CPI gasoline index >378 | 18 / 19 | 5,316 | Jun 10 | PASS — no clean index map |
| KXUSGASCPI-26JUN10-T377 | May CPI gasoline index >377 | 35 / 40 | 1,842 | Jun 10 | PASS — 5¢ spread |
| KXUST2-26JUN30-T4.20 | 2Y yield >4.20% before month-end | 78 / 79 | 2,528 | Jun 30 | PASS — touch market, fair |
| KXUSTM-26JUN30-T4.00 | 2Y yield >4.00% at month-end | 92 / 93 | 3,036 | Jun 30 | PASS — ~fair (spot 4.05) |
| KXUST10-26JUN30-T4.65 | 10Y yield >4.65% before month-end | 43 / 46 | 1,539 | Jun 30 | PASS — touch market |
| KXUST5M-26JUN30-T4.35 | 5Y yield >4.35% at month-end | 28 / 29 | 1,640 | Jun 30 | PASS — ~fair (spot 4.18) |
| KXUST30M-26JUN30-T4.95 | 30Y yield >4.95% at month-end | 69 / 70 | 2,446 | Jun 30 | PASS — ~fair (spot 4.97) |
| KXUST30M-26JUN30-T5.25 | 30Y yield >5.25% at month-end | 9 / 10 | 1,610 | Jun 30 | PASS — ~fair tail |
| KXCBDECISIONBRAZIL-26JUN17-HOLD | Brazil COPOM holds Selic Jun 17 | 57 / 58 | 3,226 | Jun 17 | PASS — real coin-flip |
| KXBRAZILINF-26JUN-T5.00 | Brazil inflation >5.00% in Jun | 13 / 14 | 1,826 | Jul 10 | PASS — ~fair tail |
| KXHOUSINGSTART-26JUN16-T1.400 | May housing starts >1.400M | 86 / 87 | 1,861 | Jun 16 | PASS — no edge |
| KXHOUSINGSTART-26JUN16-T1.450 | May housing starts >1.450M | 6 / 7 | 2,317 | Jun 16 | PASS — ~fair tail |
| KXPAYROLLS-26JUN-T40000 | June payrolls >40k | 75 / 77 | 1,730 | Jul 2 | PASS — unobserved, forecast |
| KXECONSTATU3-26JUN-T4.3 | June unemployment exactly 4.3% | 26 / 27 | 2,213 | Jul 2 | PASS — ~fair bucket |
(Also screened and cut: the same-day AAA daily gas ladder closing Jun 6, already effectively resolved.)
The mispricing. The contract title says "above 4.2%," but the rule resolves on the one-decimal value reported by BLS — so YES requires a printed 4.3% or higher. The Cleveland Fed's inflation nowcast — the single best real-time predictor, because it already ingests the daily oil and weekly retail-gas data that drive this print — sits at 4.18% YoY, which rounds to a 4.2% headline. A 4.2% print resolves this market NO. The market nonetheless prices YES at 48¢, implying a ~48% chance of a 4.3%+ print, i.e. a center near 4.23–4.25%. That is hotter than the nowcast by 0.05–0.07pp.
Why NO is the value side. Centering reported May YoY on the 4.18% nowcast (modal print 4.2%), a 4.3% print needs the actual to land ≥4.25% — roughly a 0.07pp upside miss versus the best model. Even widening the error band and crediting the current hot-surprise regime, P(4.3%+) lands ~25–35%, not 48%. NO bought at 54¢ is therefore worth ~65–75¢.
Tail risk (the clean one): a hot energy surprise. April CPI beat consensus and April PPI beat hard (6.0% vs 4.8% expected) — in this oil-shock regime, inflation prints have been surprising up. A single 4.3% headline (actual ≥4.25%) loses the whole position. That upside skew — plus my inability to load the live nowcast page directly (cited value is from mirrors) — is exactly why this is sized as a medium-conviction core, not a max bet.
Liquidity / fills: NO buyable at 54¢ (≈290 contracts), 55¢ (≈1,000), 57¢ (≈500) — a few-hundred-dollar clip fills inside 1¢ of the 55¢ limit. Price history: last 48¢, traded a tight 46–54¢ band over the past 24h on ~5.7k contracts; OI ~34.9k. No 48h thesis-moving jump.
The setup. AAA's national average is $4.220 (Jun 5 report) and falling steadily: $4.241 (Jun 4), $4.391 a week ago, $4.483 a month ago — a remarkably linear ~2.0–2.4¢/day decline, driven by WTI down ~20% on ceasefire optimism. A simple extrapolation of the print that resolves "on Jun 8" (which reflects ~Jun 7 collection) lands at roughly $4.15–$4.17 — straddling the $4.160 strike. Yet the market prices YES (gas stays >$4.16) at 92%, leaving NO at just 8¢.
Why a small NO. This is not a claim that the market is dumb — these AAA ladders are traded by sharp, gas-watching desks. It is a pure asymmetry play: downside is capped at ~10¢, while my landing model puts a realistic ~25–35% chance the Jun 8 figure prints ≤$4.16 as the decline grinds into the strike. At a ~10¢ entry that is materially +EV even if I'm fading smart money, because an 8% NO probability is hard to defend when the underlying is sitting just 6¢ above the line and dropping 2¢/day.
Tail risk (the clean one): resolution timing. If "on Jun 8" is read off an earlier daily print (≈$4.18–4.20) rather than the freshest one, $4.16 is cleared comfortably and NO loses — and that ambiguity is the most likely reason the market sits at 92%. A renewed oil spike (ceasefire collapse) would also halt the decline. Hence: small size, capped loss, lottery label.
Liquidity / fills: NO thin at the top — ~21 @8¢, ~130 @9¢, ~504 @10¢; a ~$60 clip fills near a 10¢ average. Price history: YES firmed from ~88¢ to 92–93¢ over the evening on heavy volume (15k/24h) — the market is leaning into "gas holds above $4.16," which is the signal I am deliberately fading in small size.
One steady core, one capped lottery, and a large deliberate cash reserve. I am not going to manufacture diversification by deploying into the dozen fairly-priced contracts above — that would be paying the spread for negative edge.
| Pick | Side | Limit | Contracts | Cost | Max payout | EV ¢/ct | EV $ | Conv. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KXCPIYOY-26MAY-T4.2 | BUY NO | 0.55 | 850 | $467 | $850 | +17 | +$145 | Med |
| KXAAAGASW-26JUN08-4.160 | BUY NO | 0.10 | 600 | $60 | $600 | +20 | +$120 | Low |
| Total deployed | $527 | $1,450 | +$265 | |||||
| Cash reserve | $473 | — |
Blended EV on deployed capital ≈ +50%, but that figure is flattered by the high-variance gas lottery; the steadier read is the CPI core at ~+31% EV. Dollar edge ≈ +$265 expected on $527 at risk — with a wide outcome distribution.
The rejects are the point — they show the screen worked. Five instructive misses:
At a glance, KXUST2-26JUN30-T4.20 ("2Y >4.20%") at 78% looks absurd: the 2Y closed at 4.05% on the Jun 4 H.15. But the rule says "before month-end," making it a touch / high-water-mark market — it pays YES if the 2Y is ever above 4.20% during June. From 4.05% with normal volatility, a +15bp touch over 24 days is genuinely ~70–80% likely. The "at/for month-end" legs (KXUSTM 2Y>4.00 @92, KXUST5M 5Y>4.35 @28, KXUST30M 30Y>4.95 @69) are all consistent with the live curve (2Y 4.05 / 5Y 4.18 / 10Y 4.47 / 30Y 4.97). No edge — just two different contract mechanics that look contradictory until you read them. Fed H.15
With AAA at $4.220 and falling ~2¢/day, the Jun 8 print lands near $4.17. The ladder reflects exactly that: >$4.17 at a coin-flip (51¢) and >$4.18 at 23¢. Those are fair-to-the-landing, and the resolution is knife-edge sensitive to which day's figure is used — a reason to avoid, not bet. Only the far-from-landing $4.16 leg offered the capped-downside asymmetry worth a small stake.
KXMUSKNW-26JUN30-T790 trades 88/91. The catalyst is concrete: SpaceX is set to debut on Nasdaq ~Jun 12 at $135/share (~$1.77T), which by Bloomberg's own math marks Musk to ~$988B — ~$200B above the strike. Build it up: P(IPO debuts by Jun 30) ~90% × P(stays >$790B | listed) ~97% ≈ ~88%. That is the market. Buying YES at the 91¢ ask is negative edge; an 88¢ limit is roughly zero. Watchlist, not a deploy. CNBC, Bloomberg
The sister leg KXCPIYOY-26MAY-T4.1 (YES needs a 4.2% print) trades 89%. With the nowcast at 4.18% → modal 4.2%, that's broadly right, and the upside-surprise regime (April CPI and PPI both beat) backs it further. Betting NO here at 11¢ means betting on a soft 4.1% print in a month where energy ran hot — fighting the tape. Pass.
KXCBDECISIONBRAZIL-26JUN17-HOLD (57%) is a genuine hold-vs-cut toss-up after the BCB began easing — and the public rate path I could assemble was too muddled to claim an edge. KXUSPPIYOY-26JUN11-T6.0 (49/51) is a true coin-flip on whether May PPI holds April's 6.0%. June payrolls, housing starts, and the "exactly 4.3%" unemployment bucket are unobserved forecasts with no public edge. Forcing a view on any of these would be storytelling, not trading.