Gas above $4.60 by year-end holds near 50%

Name: Gas above $4.60 by year-end holds near 50%
Creator: ClearMarket
Published: 2026-10-15T00:00:00.000Z
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Kalshi ladder

record: CMSIG2026101503 | category: momentum-repricing | target: CM-EVT-F6046BB5W1 | published: 2026-10-15

4-bullet brief | narrative

The prediction market ladder implies a market-consensus gas price just below $4.60 by year-end, with 47% pricing above that level.
The ladder drops to 34% above $4.80 and 26% above $5.00, suggesting the market sees limited upside beyond the near-term fuel cost surge cited in the Fed Beige Book and consumer spending stories.
The distribution is consistent with consumer stress narratives, a near-coin-flip at $4.60, but does not price a full spike to $5-plus as a base case.
Ground beef on Polymarket (CM-EVT-PDKX4Y2KV6) sits at only 4%, a separate food-cost signal that suggests markets are not broadly pricing a generalized commodity price shock beyond fuel.

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: U.S. consumers are absorbing higher prices including rising fuel costs, raising questions about how long spending can hold up.exa_search → Christopher Rugaber · as_of 2026-10-16T12:59:00+00:00
publisher: Christopher Rugaber
published_at: 2026-10-15T00:00:00.000Z
source_url: https://apnews.com/article/us-economy-consumers-elections-inflation-28ffc9c856377d468a2fb231712806b1

[02] pm_response

interp: Ladder event; the $4.60 strike near 50% is the key read; source and resolution mechanics are unspecified in the provided data.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/kxaaagasmax-26dec31/

external

venue_a: https://kalshi.com/markets/KXAAAGASMAX-26DEC31-4.60

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/gas-above-4-60-by-dec-31-ladder-implies-near-50-2026-10-15/`
JSON	REST API for developers	`https://clearmarket.fyi/signals/gas-above-4-60-by-dec-31-ladder-implies-near-50-2026-10-15.json`
MCP	agentic AI tool call (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue)	`clearmarket.get_signal("gas-above-4-60-by-dec-31-ladder-implies-near-50-2026-10-15")`
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": "CMSIG2026101503",
  "published_at": "2026-10-15T00:00:00.000Z",
  "detection": "news_cycle",
  "category_tag": "MOMENTUM_REPRICING",
  "secondary_tags": [],
  "pre_news_classification": "concurrent",
  "target_event_id": "CM-EVT-F6046BB5W1",
  "target_event_slug": "kxaaagasmax-26dec31",
  "event_question": "Average U.S. gas price by Dec 31, 2026",
  "bullets": [
    "The prediction market ladder implies a market-consensus gas price just below $4.60 by year-end, with 47% pricing above that level.",
    "The ladder drops to 34% above $4.80 and 26% above $5.00, suggesting the market sees limited upside beyond the near-term fuel cost surge cited in the Fed Beige Book and consumer spending stories.",
    "The distribution is consistent with consumer stress narratives, a near-coin-flip at $4.60, but does not price a full spike to $5-plus as a base case.",
    "Ground beef on Polymarket (CM-EVT-PDKX4Y2KV6) sits at only 4%, a separate food-cost signal that suggests markets are not broadly pricing a generalized commodity price shock beyond fuel."
  ],
  "atomic_claims": [
    {
      "type": "news_event",
      "field_provenance": {
        "story": {
          "tier": "mediated",
          "method": "exa_search",
          "source": "Christopher Rugaber",
          "source_url": "https://apnews.com/article/us-economy-consumers-elections-inflation-28ffc9c856377d468a2fb231712806b1",
          "retrieved_at": "2026-10-16T12:59:00+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": "U.S. consumers are absorbing higher prices including rising fuel costs, raising questions about how long spending can hold up.",
      "publisher": "Christopher Rugaber",
      "published_at": "2026-10-15T00:00:00.000Z",
      "source_url": "https://apnews.com/article/us-economy-consumers-elections-inflation-28ffc9c856377d468a2fb231712806b1"
    },
    {
      "type": "pm_response",
      "field_provenance": {
        "notes": {
          "tier": "editorial",
          "method": "llm_judge_cm_signal_v1"
        }
      },
      "notes": "Ladder event; the $4.60 strike near 50% is the key read; source and resolution mechanics are unspecified in the provided data."
    }
  ],
  "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/kxaaagasmax-26dec31/",
      "related": []
    },
    "external": {
      "venue_a": "https://kalshi.com/markets/KXAAAGASMAX-26DEC31-4.60",
      "venue_b": null,
      "benchmark": null
    }
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "label": "Christopher Rugaber: US consumers are muscling through higher prices, but for how long?",
      "url": "https://apnews.com/article/us-economy-consumers-elections-inflation-28ffc9c856377d468a2fb231712806b1",
      "published_at": "2026-10-15T00:00:00.000Z",
      "retrieved_at": "2026-10-16T12:59:00+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 CMSIG2026101503 published 2026-10-15T00:00:00.000Z signature sha256-499b6b6ff97… ← underlying event all signals →