49% — What are the odds of a Fed rate cut?
Kalshi 99% · Polymarket 85% · 21 contracts · $26.0M volume · high confidence
Updated 2026-08-18 05:31:00 UTC

Tracks the leading outcome in a winner-take-all prediction market set with 4 outcomes.

Cross-venue gap: 14pp (Kalshi higher)

Why this matters:
The federal funds rate is currently 3.63%, and prediction markets overwhelmingly indicate that rates will remain above 3.50% following the Fed's September meeting. There is a high degree of confidence that rates will stay elevated through the end of 2026, with an 81% market-implied probability that the upper bound will remain above 3.50% after the December meeting.

Key factors:
- Federal funds rate at 3.63%
- September rate floor above 3.50% highly likely
- December rate maintenance above 3.50% priced at 81%
- Inflationary pressure at 3.3% YoY

Contracts:
- Will the upper bound of the federal funds rate be above 3.00% following the Fed's Sep 16, 2026 meeting? — 99¢ Kalshi $10K (weight 0%)
- Will the upper bound of the federal funds rate be above 3.50% following the Fed's Sep 16, 2026 meeting? — 98¢ Kalshi $27K (weight 0%)
- Will the upper bound of the federal funds rate be above 2.75% following the Fed's Dec 9, 2026 meeting? — 98¢ Kalshi $17K (weight 0%)
- Will the upper bound of the federal funds rate be above 3.25% following the Fed's Dec 9, 2026 meeting? — 98¢ Kalshi $11K (weight 0%)
- How many Fed rate cuts in 2026?: 0 (0 bps) — 85¢ Polymarket $7.3M (weight 28%)
- Will the upper bound of the federal funds rate be above 3.50% following the Fed's Apr 28, 2027 meeting? — 83¢ Kalshi $23K (weight 0%)
- Will the upper bound of the federal funds rate be above 3.25% following the Fed's Apr 28, 2027 meeting? — 82¢ Kalshi $16K (weight 0%)
- Will the upper bound of the federal funds rate be above 3.50% following the Fed's Dec 9, 2026 meeting? — 81¢ Kalshi $25K (weight 0%)
- ... and 12 more

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## Methodology

SimpleFunctions aggregates live YES-side prices from Kalshi and Polymarket contracts bound to this question. For binary topics the headline is the liquidity-weighted mid-price (weight = log(1 + 24h volume) × freshness, where freshness is 1.0 if updated <24h, 0.7 if <7d, 0.4 otherwise). For multi-outcome (winner-take-all) topics the headline is the current leader's price — disjoint outcomes are never arithmetically averaged. Snapshots refresh every 5 minutes during market hours.

## SF Signal

- SF Index, regime, and 30d Brier calibration are computed separately and surfaced at https://simplefunctions.dev/admin/calibration.
- No SimpleFunctions index / regime / calibration signal is bound to this topic yet — the headline above is market-derived only.

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*Last verified: 2026-08-16T06:40:35.025Z*

By SimpleFunctions — https://simplefunctions.dev/

Cite as: "49% per prediction markets (SimpleFunctions, August 2026)"
Canonical: https://simplefunctions.dev/answer/fed-rate-cut
Full data: https://simplefunctions.dev/api/public/query?q=What%20are%20the%20odds%20of%20a%20Fed%20rate%20cut%3F
Provider: SimpleFunctions — https://simplefunctions.dev