August unemployment rate holds near 4.1 to 4.2 percent
Kalshi ladder
record: CMSIG2026082102 | category: momentum-repricing | target: CM-EVT-CN1M891289 | published: 2026-08-21
4-bullet brief | narrative
- Kalshi ladder implies August U-3 unemployment in the 4.1-4.2% range: 54% above 4.1%, only 23% above 4.2%.
- Claims falling to 206,000 is consistent with the ladder's tight clustering just above 4.1%, signaling no labor-market deterioration.
- The four-week average rising despite the weekly dip is a mechanical artifact; the distribution shows little tail risk above 4.5%.
- Companion Kalshi ladder for September (CM-EVT-720DZC17Y9) implies 4.2-4.3%, suggesting the market sees a gradual drift, not a spike.
atomic briefs | structured for retrieval
[01] news_event
significance
surfaced in the daily Exa news-cycle scan; mechanically matched to an active kalshi market
- story
- Initial jobless claims fell 6,000 to 206,000 for the week ending August 15, though the four-week average rose due to rolling-window effects.exa_search → Tomas Ferreira · as_of 2026-08-24T08:42:17+00:00 [mediated]
- publisher
- Tomas Ferreira
- published_at
- 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
[02] pm_response
- interp
- Kalshi ladder resolves on the Bureau of Labor Statistics U-3 unemployment rate for August 2026.llm_judge_cm_signal_v1 [editorial]
evaluation
News-cycle wires publish on coverage, not editorial selection — the day’s top stories matched to the prediction markets pricing them, so nothing is cherry-picked.
- judge_engine
none — deterministic news-cycle scan- judge_verdict
- auto_published
- judge_confidence
- n/a — no judge gate (deterministic publishing)
- prompt_template
news_cycle_v1github · auditable- match_method
entity_slug_match (mechanical)
citation graph
Every wire traces back to the ClearMarket event it is built on, and out to each venue’s own market page — so any figure here can be verified at its source.
internal
- cm_event
- /events/kxu3-26aug/
external
programmatic access · four surfaces, same payload
AI grounded search reads embedded JSON-LD in HTML. Developers query REST. Agentic AI clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor) call MCP tools. AI crawlers index via /llms.txt. Same canonical record at every surface.
| HTML | browsers, AI grounded search, crawlers (contains embedded JSON-LD @type: Dataset) | https://clearmarket.fyi/signals/aug-u-3-rate-seen-4-1-4-2-kalshi-ladder-2026-08-21/ |
| JSON | REST API for developers | https://clearmarket.fyi/signals/aug-u-3-rate-seen-4-1-4-2-kalshi-ladder-2026-08-21.json |
| MCP | agentic AI tool call (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue) | clearmarket.get_signal("aug-u-3-rate-seen-4-1-4-2-kalshi-ladder-2026-08-21") |
| AGENT | AI crawler discovery index | /llms.txt |
PM data: platform APIs (hourly refresh). News context: retrieved with source citations. Editorial judgment: LLM judge with prompt template versioned per wire type. Per-claim provenance inline above; full per-field provenance map at the JSON endpoint under field_provenance.
raw JSON record · same payload returned by REST endpoint {
"$schema": "https://clearmarket.fyi/schema/signal/v1.json",
"provenance_version": "0.2.0",
"record_id": "CMSIG2026082102",
"published_at": "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z",
"detection": "news_cycle",
"category_tag": "MOMENTUM_REPRICING",
"secondary_tags": [],
"pre_news_classification": "concurrent",
"target_event_id": "CM-EVT-CN1M891289",
"target_event_slug": "kxu3-26aug",
"event_question": "August 2026 U-3 unemployment rate",
"bullets": [
"Kalshi ladder implies August U-3 unemployment in the 4.1-4.2% range: 54% above 4.1%, only 23% above 4.2%.",
"Claims falling to 206,000 is consistent with the ladder's tight clustering just above 4.1%, signaling no labor-market deterioration.",
"The four-week average rising despite the weekly dip is a mechanical artifact; the distribution shows little tail risk above 4.5%.",
"Companion Kalshi ladder for September (CM-EVT-720DZC17Y9) implies 4.2-4.3%, suggesting the market sees a gradual drift, not a spike."
],
"atomic_claims": [
{
"type": "news_event",
"field_provenance": {
"story": {
"tier": "mediated",
"method": "exa_search",
"source": "Tomas Ferreira",
"source_url": "https://usmarketcurrent.com/claims-fell-6000-and-the-four-week-average-still-rose-4250-august-2026/",
"retrieved_at": "2026-08-24T08:42:17+00:00"
}
},
"significance": {
"threshold": 5,
"threshold_unit": "rank",
"passed": true,
"reason": "surfaced in the daily Exa news-cycle scan; mechanically matched to an active kalshi market"
},
"story": "Initial jobless claims fell 6,000 to 206,000 for the week ending August 15, though the four-week average rose due to rolling-window effects.",
"publisher": "Tomas Ferreira",
"published_at": "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z",
"source_url": "https://usmarketcurrent.com/claims-fell-6000-and-the-four-week-average-still-rose-4250-august-2026/"
},
{
"type": "pm_response",
"field_provenance": {
"notes": {
"tier": "editorial",
"method": "llm_judge_cm_signal_v1"
}
},
"notes": "Kalshi ladder resolves on the Bureau of Labor Statistics U-3 unemployment rate for August 2026."
}
],
"evaluation": {
"judge_engine": "none — deterministic news-cycle scan",
"judge_verdict": "auto_published",
"judge_confidence": null,
"prompt_template": "news_cycle_v1"
},
"citations": {
"internal": {
"cm_event": "/events/kxu3-26aug/",
"related": []
},
"external": {
"venue_a": "https://kalshi.com/markets/KXU3-26AUG-T4.2",
"venue_b": null,
"benchmark": null
}
},
"sources": [
{
"label": "Tomas Ferreira: Initial claims fell 6,000 to 206,000. The four-week average rose anywa",
"url": "https://usmarketcurrent.com/claims-fell-6000-and-the-four-week-average-still-rose-4250-august-2026/",
"published_at": "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z",
"retrieved_at": "2026-08-24T08:42:17+00:00"
}
],
"field_provenance": {
"pm_data": "kalshi_api",
"news_context": "exa_search",
"editorial_judgment": "cm_signal_llm_judge"
}
}
PROVENANCE PROTOCOL v0.2 · [direct] venue api · [mediated] grounded web fetch + source url · [derived] computed from listed inputs · [editorial] versioned llm judgment · full spec /schema/provenance/v1