Full recap
The CFTC is back on Polymarket's case, which is impressive given that the CFTC and DOJ literally dropped this same investigation less than a year ago. Nothing says regulatory credibility like re-opening a probe you just closed. Maybe they lost the paperwork. Maybe they got bored. Maybe they just needed something to do while inflation eats the economy alive. Speaking of which: Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis Fed President and professional buzzkill, says he expects a rate hike this year. The economy is, in his words, still feeling the hit from spiking inflation. So the cure for the disease caused by printing too much money is making money more expensive to borrow. Classic. The Fed giveth the bubble, and the Fed taketh away your mortgage. Jeremy Grantham meanwhile wandered out of his cave to remind everyone that this is the most expensive market in American history. He has been saying something like this for a while, but he is not wrong, and the AI valuation mania is the current villain. When a man who has been bearish through multiple bull markets starts sounding like the reasonable one in the room, that is your sign. OpenAI is reportedly delaying its IPO, and Kalshi traders are pricing in only one-in-three odds it happens in 2026. The market for betting on the IPO of a company that may or may not be profitable is somehow more honest than the IPO itself will be. Prediction markets: doing the journalism Wall Street banks are too conflicted to do. On the field, the World Cup group stage is sorting itself out, and 48 teams means roughly 24 of them are going home very confused about why they were invited. The expanded format is peak FIFA: more product, more revenue, more chaos, and just enough soccer to keep people watching. Scottie Scheffler needed one birdie in his final two holes to shoot a second sub-60 round at the Travelers Championship. He made a 60 instead. The man is so good at golf that almost making history twice is a slow news day for him. Meanwhile the rest of us are out here triple-bogeying par threes. UFC Fight Night has Fiziev vs. Torres on Saturday, and the Astros play the Tigers tonight in a game some model has now simulated 10,000 times. The model knows more about baseball than most humans will ever know, and the Tigers will probably win 3-2 in 11 innings because that is what computers do to us when we trust them too much. Happy Friday. Spend it accordingly.
Highlights
- CFTC re-opens Polymarket probe months after closing it: regulatory whiplash as a service, brought to you by your tax dollars.
- Kashkari wants a rate hike while Grantham says markets are the most overvalued in US history: nothing like fighting a fire with a flamethrower.
- Scheffler shot a 60 at the Travelers and it counts as falling short of expectations. The bar this man has set for himself is genuinely offensive to weekend golfers everywhere.
- OpenAI IPO delayed: turns out valuing a company that spends billions and earns mysteries is tricky even for Wall Street.
Original source links
- CNBC: CFTC is conducting an investigation into Polymarket, source says
- CNBC: Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari says he expects a rate hike this year
- CNBC: OpenAI is reportedly delaying its IPO. Here's when Kalshi traders think it will announce
- CBS Sports: World Cup group standings, table, schedule: Results for USMNT, Argentina, Brazil and the entire 48-team field
- CBS Sports: 2026 Travelers Championship: Scottie Scheffler flirts with history, settles for 60 to take lead in Round 2
- CBS Sports: UFC Fight Night odds, lines, predictions, time: Rafael Fiziev vs. Manuel Torres picks by elite MMA expert