This is On the Record — a weekly look at the most interesting questions prediction markets are pricing, from a company that seals its own forecasts before outcomes are known and reveals its full score at forecast #1,000, good or bad. Our numbers stay locked until then. The questions, though, are worth your time on their own.
Economics
Will the Fed hike rates in September?
Market says: 42% (at our lock)
Why it's harder than it looks: all year the question on financial TV has been "when's the cut?" Quietly, the market is asking something stranger — whether the next move is up. A 42-cent price on a hike contract means traders think it's nearly a coin flip. Markets that can't agree on the direction of the next move, not just the timing, are rare — and they're where sloppy assumptions get expensive.
The fine print: this contract resolves on what the target range actually does at the September 15–16 meeting. Hawkish speeches, dissents, and scary dot plots all resolve NO if the rate doesn't move.
What would move it: the August CPI print (Aug 12) — where, at our lock, the market priced 'inflation above 3.2%' at 68 cents — and the September 4 jobs report.
🔒 Our call: sealed · unlocks at the reveal
Politics
Does the House pass a budget resolution before August 1?
Market says: 56% (at our lock)
Why it's harder than it looks: congressional deadline markets are mood rings — they swing on every leadership soundbite, and historically they overreact in both directions as the date closes in. The interesting discipline is separating noise (statements, posturing) from signal (floor schedule, whip counts).
The fine print: "passes" means the House actually adopts the resolution before the deadline. A deal announced at a podium, a committee vote, a promise — all NO until the floor vote happens.
Watch this one with us: it resolves August 1 — nine days from now. Whatever happens, it'll be one of the first calls you can watch get graded — sealed now, scored in public, in our permanent record either way.
🔒 Our call: sealed · unlocks at the reveal
Weather
Is this the hottest July ever recorded?
Market says: 20% (at our lock)
Why it's harder than it looks: every heat wave feels historic when you're standing in it — and that feeling is exactly what this market prices against. A 20-cent price says: probably hot, probably not the record. The gap between "feels unprecedented" and "is measurably unprecedented" is one of the most reliable places human intuition and data part ways.
The fine print: resolves on the official global temperature datasets when they publish in mid-August — not your city's heat index, and not the headlines.
🔒 Our call: sealed · unlocks at the reveal
How the machine works, part 1: why "calibration" is the only score we'll ever brag about. Anyone can point at a winning call. A hit rate can be juiced by only taking easy questions. The number that can't be gamed is calibration: when we say 70%, does it happen about 70% of the time — across everything we forecast, not a highlight reel? That's the score that unlocks at #1,000, computed by rules we wrote down and cryptographically sealed before the data came in. It's also the score most public predictors have never once shown you. Worth asking why.
The count: 484 researched forecasts sealed · 21 of 1,000 resolved toward the reveal · latest daily fingerprint (sealed July 22): 50344afcdbfb9b1137a288af5837f3411e0dc82e94d30ab053facd289762f5c4 — Published before the outcomes it covers were known — verify anytime at dashtra.ai/track-record.
Know someone who'd want to be in the room when the scoreboard unlocks? Forward this — it's the only ask we'll ever make.
— Johnston, founder · Dashtra — Foresight, on the record.
Research, not advice. We never touch your money. · dashtra.ai · unsubscribe anytime