S&P 500 open odds tilted bullish on Polymarket on 13 August, with traders pricing a 61% chance of a higher start to the session, Benzinga reported.
The contract, titled ‘S&P 500 (SPX) Up or Down on August 13?’, is one of a recurring series Benzinga runs on Polymarket pricing each trading day. Odds in the same franchise ran as high as 69% on 6 August and as low as 56% the day before this one, according to syndicated coverage of the series, putting the 61% reading for 13 August squarely within the recent range.
Cooling inflation, steady curve
The bullish lean came against a backdrop of easing price pressure. US headline CPI cooled to a 3.4% annual pace in July, down from 3.5% in June, with core inflation easing to 2.5% from 2.6%, per the companion Benzinga economics report linked from the original piece.
The labour market told a similar story. The US unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% in July from 4.2% the prior month, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis data. Treasury yields, meanwhile, barely moved: the 10-year stood at 4.7% on 11 August against 4.72% previously, the FRED series shows, while the 2-year held at 4.22%. The 10-year/2-year spread was flat at 0.48 percentage points as of 12 August, per separate FRED data. None of that points to an imminent shift in Federal Reserve policy either way.
Where the packaging overreaches
The Polymarket snapshot itself checks out. Two other elements attached to this story cluster do not survive scrutiny.
The cluster flagged Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) as a 24-hour mover of 4.6%. Consolidated exchange data in the record show nothing close to that: AMAT’s 24-hour move stood at just 0.17%, with the stock last near $552.89 as of 12 August, 23:00 UTC. The shares have actually slipped 0.93% over the trailing 20 sessions, trading in a range between $437.08 and $575.70 across that window.
Applied Materials does have a genuine reason to be in the news this week, just not the one attached to it. The chip-equipment maker was due to report fiscal third-quarter results after the close on 13 August, the same day as the Polymarket preview, according to Yahoo Finance. Its most recent quarterly filing showed revenue of $7.91bn and diluted earnings per share of $6.05 for the three months to 26 April 2026, with net income of $4.83bn for the period, according to the company’s 10-Q filed with the SEC. FINRA daily short-sale data put AMAT’s short-volume ratio at 0.344 on 12 August, down from a run above 0.42 earlier in the month, per FINRA’s short-sale volume tables.
The cluster’s second attachment — a “matching SEC filing” — pointed to a set of Form 4s filed on 11 and 12 August. Those filings belong to CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV), not Applied Materials, and record insider sales by chief development officer Brannin McBee, according to the underlying EDGAR filings. McBee sold roughly $17.6m of Class A stock on 10 August under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, according to Investing.com, and the filings dated 11-12 August cover further tranches of the same pre-scheduled programme rather than a fresh disclosure. The selling has drawn separate attention: cumulative sales under the plan have topped $57m in recent months, according to Kavout’s market commentary. None of it has any bearing on the Polymarket contract or the S&P 500 open.
What to watch
The Polymarket contract itself settles on the direction of the S&P 500’s open on 13 August, giving traders a same-day read on whether the 61% lean was justified. Applied Materials’ after-market results the same day offer the more concrete data point for chip-equipment investors, following a quarter in which revenue rose from $7.01bn in the prior three months to $7.91bn. CoreWeave’s Form 4 filings under McBee’s 10b5-1 plan remain worth tracking separately, given the scale of sales disclosed so far, though periodic insider disposals under a pre-set plan are a routine feature of US-listed compensation structures rather than a signal in themselves.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Markets move quickly; figures are correct as sourced at the time of writing. Always do your own research before making financial decisions.
