Six Iran bets settled in three hours. Oil still fell 8.7% two days later.

Good morning, Slaters!

This was a week of two kinds of prices.

Crude traded speeches. Brent fell about 4% early Monday amid talk of reopening Hormuz. It dropped 8.7% Wednesday, the day President Trump said there were no immediate plans to strike Iran. Then it rose 3.9% Thursday as Iran claimed mine strikes no one had confirmed. No deal was signed at any point.

Prediction markets traded rule books. Each contract asked one narrow, checkable question, and that is what it priced. The ceasefire ladder barely moved on Monday's peace talk, then settled on a strike that oil shrugged off. The December hike bet rose while inflation swaps fell with oil. The Senate contract made Democrats a 76-cent favorite, and the favorite won.

The lesson is not that the contracts knew more. They answered a narrower question. When a headline and a contract disagree, read the resolution terms before deciding which one is wrong.

Six contracts explain the week.

The calm before Qeshm

Contract: Polymarket, U.S.-Iran ceasefire holds through Nov. 15

Start of week: About 54 cents early Monday, up about 1.5 points from Friday

End of week: Resolved "No" Monday night

Catalyst: Iran's two-day Hormuz offer, then the Qeshm Island strike report

Resolution condition: The truce had to hold through Nov. 15. A U.S. strike on Iranian land before then settles it "No."

What the market actually said: Crude moved far more than this contract over the same stretch. Brent shed about $5 from Friday's settle into Monday morning. The Nov. 15 contract gained about 1.5 points and still implied roughly a 46% chance of a strike by mid-month. The strike bet stayed near even odds.

Iran's offer came with conditions Washington had not accepted, including lifted sanctions and fewer U.S. forces in the region. The contract priced the conditions. Oil priced the offer.

Six bets, three hours

Contract: Polymarket ceasefire ladder for Nov. 4, Nov. 8, Nov. 15, Nov. 22, Nov. 30 and Dec. 31

Start of week: Nov. 8 near 70.5 cents and Nov. 15 near 54.5 cents late Monday afternoon

End of week: All six resolved "No" within about three hours of the report

Catalyst: The Wall Street Journal reported after Monday's close that the U.S. had struck Qeshm, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz, that day

Resolution condition: Any U.S. strike on Iranian land before each deadline. Size and intent don't change the payout.

What the market actually said: Within about 10 minutes, the Nov. 8 and Nov. 15 bets fell to 16.5 and 12 cents. The contracts moved before the official story caught up. Earlier Monday, Trump had told Fox News that "there hasn't been shooting for months." Officials later called the strike limited and defensive. On Tuesday, Trump confirmed it as a "minor attack."

The contracts ignored the adjectives. A small strike settles a ceasefire contract the same way a big one does. Brent recovered less than $2, then fell 8.7% on Wednesday. Oil read Qeshm as noise. The contracts read it as a breach. Both can be right, because they asked different questions.

The bets that expired, then didn't

Contract: Polymarket ceasefire contracts for Oct. 31 and Nov. 2

Start of week: Expired near 99 cents, pricing a truce that held

End of week: Trading near 88 and 78.5 cents after a dispute opened

Catalyst: The Qeshm report described a series of secret, small-scale strikes in recent weeks

Resolution condition: The same rule. If any earlier strike hit Iranian land before Oct. 31 or Nov. 2, those contracts should have paid "No."

What the market actually said: The headlines said the truce held through Halloween. The rules say that depends on facts nobody has published. No dates or locations for earlier strikes have been reported.

At 88 and 78.5 cents, traders still lean toward Monday being a one-off. The doubt is larger on the later deadline, which fits the rule: the later the date, the more days an unreported strike could fall inside it.

This is the week's clearest case of resolution rules overriding a headline. An expired contract is only final once its facts are.

A 76-cent favorite wins

Contract: Democratic control of the Senate, Polymarket and Kalshi

Start of week: Low 70s on both venues, after what appeared to be a single order of about 238,000 contracts lifted Kalshi on Sunday evening

End of week: 76.5 cents on Polymarket and 76 on Kalshi on Election Day morning. Democrats won both chambers and flipped seven Republican-held Senate seats without losing one, according to the AP. Some races are still being counted.

Catalyst: Election Day

Resolution condition: Kalshi can settle early on a media consensus. Polymarket resolves on seats won.

What the market actually said: A three-in-four favorite won. That is a contract working as priced, not proof it called the race. At 76 cents, the market still gave the other side about a one-in-four chance.

Two details matter more than the result. Polymarket's order book shrank to about $977,000 from about $2.6 million the day before, so the final price rested on thin money. And the venues pay on different triggers. How the contracts pay out depends on the fine print. Same outcome, different clocks.

The hike bet that ignored oil

Contract: Kalshi, quarter-point Fed hike in December

Start of week: CME FedWatch near 70% on Monday, down from the mid-80s after the Fed's October decision. Kalshi at 74 cents Tuesday afternoon.

End of week: 80 cents early Wednesday, held at 80 cents into Thursday, then marked down to near 70% by Friday morning

Catalyst: Factory and services data, the election, an 8.7% oil drop and Thursday's stock selloff

Resolution condition: A quarter-point hike at the Fed's December meeting

What the market actually said: This is the week's headline-versus-probability gap. Oil collapsed. One-year inflation swaps fell to about 2.1% from 2.7% a week earlier. The hike contract went up.

It was reading other evidence. The ISM factory index rose to 55.5. ISM's services prices index eased only to 73.0. ADP counted 86,000 private jobs against forecasts near 69,000. And the survey's chair said costs already in supply chains should keep reaching prices even if oil falls.

The bet gave ground only after Thursday's selloff pushed the 10-year down to 4.84%. Even near 70%, it is a strong lean toward a hike, not a certainty.

Priced in, then the guidance

Contract: Bank of England rate decision (rates-market pricing, not an event contract)

Start of week: Economists expected a hike to 4% as of Tuesday. Markets priced more than a 90% chance by Thursday morning.

End of week: Bank Rate raised to 4% on an 8-1 vote. Catherine Mann wanted a half point.

Catalyst: Thursday's decision

Resolution condition: A quarter-point increase to 4.00%

What the market actually said: The hike was almost fully priced, so the decision told traders little. The guidance did the work. Governor Andrew Bailey said that "unless the conflict in the Middle East is resolved, neither does it seem likely to be the last increase."

The bank's projections assumed Brent near $108. Brent entered Thursday on course for its steepest weekly drop since 2020. So U.K. rates now hinge on a conflict that oil traded as ending and the ceasefire contracts settled as breached.

That's it for this week's Slate. The contracts closed their questions. Crude is still arguing about its own. Enjoy the weekend.

Today's reply prompt: Which price had the better read on Iran this week: the contracts that settled on one small strike, or the oil market that fell 8.7% two days later?