Fed funds upper bound seen in 4.0-4.25% range

Name: Fed funds upper bound seen in 4.0-4.25% range
Creator: ClearMarket
Published: 2026-09-21T00:00:00.000Z
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Kalshi ladder

record: CMSIG2026092101 | category: momentum-repricing | target: CM-EVT-MR57HVWJT3 | published: 2026-09-21

4-bullet brief | narrative

Kalshi ladder prices the federal funds upper bound in the 4.0-4.25% range: 86% above 4.0%, but only 42% above 4.25%, with a sharp dropoff above 4.5% at 10%.
St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem's call for more hikes is broadly consistent with market pricing, which already embeds a meaningful probability of at least one further move above 4.0%.
Trading volume on this ladder surged 517x day over day, signaling a sharp jump in market attention following Musalem's comments.
The fat tail collapses quickly above 4.5%: only 2% probability above 4.75%, suggesting markets credit Musalem's hawkish posture but do not price an aggressive multi-hike path.

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: St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said more rate hikes are likely needed to quell inflation, signaling continued tightening beyond the September meeting.exa_search → Howard Schneider · as_of 2026-09-23T13:17:11+00:00
publisher: Howard Schneider
published_at: 2026-09-21T00:00:00.000Z
source_url: https://www.reuters.com/business/feds-musalem-says-more-rate-hikes-likely-needed-quell-inflation-2026-09-21/

[02] pm_response

interp: Kalshi ladder; volume spike of 517x day over day confirms fresh positioning around post-September rate path following Musalem remarks.llm_judge_cm_signal_v1

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_v1 github · 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/kxfed-26dec/

external

venue_a: https://kalshi.com/markets/KXFED-26DEC-T4.25

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/fed-funds-upper-bound-implied-4-0-4-25-kalshi-ladder-2026-09-21/`
JSON	REST API for developers	`https://clearmarket.fyi/signals/fed-funds-upper-bound-implied-4-0-4-25-kalshi-ladder-2026-09-21.json`
MCP	agentic AI tool call (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue)	`clearmarket.get_signal("fed-funds-upper-bound-implied-4-0-4-25-kalshi-ladder-2026-09-21")`
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": "CMSIG2026092101",
  "published_at": "2026-09-21T00:00:00.000Z",
  "detection": "news_cycle",
  "category_tag": "MOMENTUM_REPRICING",
  "secondary_tags": [],
  "pre_news_classification": "concurrent",
  "target_event_id": "CM-EVT-MR57HVWJT3",
  "target_event_slug": "kxfed-26dec",
  "event_question": "Federal funds rate upper bound (post-September)",
  "bullets": [
    "Kalshi ladder prices the federal funds upper bound in the 4.0-4.25% range: 86% above 4.0%, but only 42% above 4.25%, with a sharp dropoff above 4.5% at 10%.",
    "St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem's call for more hikes is broadly consistent with market pricing, which already embeds a meaningful probability of at least one further move above 4.0%.",
    "Trading volume on this ladder surged 517x day over day, signaling a sharp jump in market attention following Musalem's comments.",
    "The fat tail collapses quickly above 4.5%: only 2% probability above 4.75%, suggesting markets credit Musalem's hawkish posture but do not price an aggressive multi-hike path."
  ],
  "atomic_claims": [
    {
      "type": "news_event",
      "field_provenance": {
        "story": {
          "tier": "mediated",
          "method": "exa_search",
          "source": "Howard Schneider",
          "source_url": "https://www.reuters.com/business/feds-musalem-says-more-rate-hikes-likely-needed-quell-inflation-2026-09-21/",
          "retrieved_at": "2026-09-23T13:17:11+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": "St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said more rate hikes are likely needed to quell inflation, signaling continued tightening beyond the September meeting.",
      "publisher": "Howard Schneider",
      "published_at": "2026-09-21T00:00:00.000Z",
      "source_url": "https://www.reuters.com/business/feds-musalem-says-more-rate-hikes-likely-needed-quell-inflation-2026-09-21/"
    },
    {
      "type": "pm_response",
      "field_provenance": {
        "notes": {
          "tier": "editorial",
          "method": "llm_judge_cm_signal_v1"
        }
      },
      "notes": "Kalshi ladder; volume spike of 517x day over day confirms fresh positioning around post-September rate path following Musalem remarks."
    }
  ],
  "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/kxfed-26dec/",
      "related": []
    },
    "external": {
      "venue_a": "https://kalshi.com/markets/KXFED-26DEC-T4.25",
      "venue_b": null,
      "benchmark": null
    }
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "label": "Howard Schneider: EXCLUSIVE: Fed's Musalem says more rate hikes likely needed to quell i",
      "url": "https://www.reuters.com/business/feds-musalem-says-more-rate-hikes-likely-needed-quell-inflation-2026-09-21/",
      "published_at": "2026-09-21T00:00:00.000Z",
      "retrieved_at": "2026-09-23T13:17:11+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

record CMSIG2026092101 published 2026-09-21T00:00:00.000Z signature sha256-5b2da2b48ac… ← underlying event all signals →