Three A-Grades, One CPI Print, and a Spider-Man Cliff

CPI came in soft this morning, futures ripped, and Fed cut odds are back on the menu. Meanwhile Spider-Man is limping into weekend three and Russia is doing Russia things. The board basically wrote itself today.

Three A-grades. Let's get into it.

Will Russia target Kyiv on August 18, 2026?

Position: YES at 40¢.

The market is telling you there's a 60% chance a random Tuesday in August goes by without a Russian strike on Kyiv. Have you… been reading the news the last three years?

Our model has this at 55%, and honestly that might be conservative. Kyiv-directed attacks have been running at a base rate well above 40% on any given day. The market is anchoring to "maybe they take a day off" energy. They don't take days off.

What kills it: A ceasefire headline or a quiet 24-hour window. Wars are noisy and one calm day resolves this NO. But you're getting priced like it's a coin flip when the base rate says otherwise.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day 3rd Weekend Under $72M

Position: YES at 77¢.

Third weekends for blockbusters drop 50%+. That's not a hot take, that's just how movies work. Unless BND is pulling Top Gun: Maverick legs (it's not), sub-$72M is basically the default outcome.

We've got this at 90%, market has it at 77%. You're paying 77¢ for something that should be 90¢. Not a moonshot, but the kind of grinder A-grade you stack size on.

What kills it: A freakishly strong hold — think great word of mouth plus no real competition opening against it. Possible, not probable. The tape says people show up opening weekend and bounce.

S&P 500 Up or Down on August 13?

Position: YES at 79¢.

This is the layup of the slate. Softer CPI dropped this morning, rate hike expectations got repriced, and equities are already green intraday. You're basically betting that a market that's already up… stays up for a few more hours.

Model says 90%, market says 79%. The edge exists because Polymarket day-of markets are always slightly slow to fully price intraday moves — someone always thinks a late-day reversal is coming. It happens, but not 21% of the time when the tape looks like this.

What kills it: A hawkish Fed speaker at 2pm, some geopolitical headline, or just plain end-of-day selling. It's happened before. It's why this isn't 95¢.

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Three A-grades, three different reasons the market is soft. Yes we put a lot of thought into a Spider-Man box office bet. We know.

GL out there. Try to be up by dinner.