July 9, 2026 · PM edition

Fed Task Forces, Prediction Market Drama, and McGregor Is Back -- PM Recap

The Fed gets a task force, the prediction markets get mainstream, McGregor gets a fight card -- and somehow Bitcoin is still the one thing nobody in power wants to put on the agenda.

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Full recap

Kevin Warsh is building his Federal Reserve dream team, and somehow Marc Andreessen and Walmart's Doug McMillon made the cut. Nothing says 'central bank reform' like a venture capitalist and a big-box retail CEO sitting around a table deciding what money is worth. To be fair, the current system was designed by people who thought the gold standard was too restrictive, so maybe fresh eyes help. Prediction markets are officially mainstream enough to cause institutional panic. CNBC pinged 50 companies asking about employee trading policies on platforms like Kalshi, and a 'handful' had an answer. The rest presumably had a meeting about scheduling a meeting to draft a policy framework for reviewing the question. Classic. Speaking of Kalshi, traders on the platform are pricing in a 75% chance gas stays above $3.50 through Election Day, with U.S.-Iran tensions doing the heavy lifting on that thesis. Nothing like geopolitical friction to remind everyone that energy is still priced in a currency that governments can print, but oil fields cannot. Midday movers included Micron, Mara Holdings, PepsiCo, and the freshly minted Paramount Skydance entity. Mara Holdings on the list is the Bitcoin mining angle nobody in the mainstream will call by its real name. When the mining stocks move, something is happening under the hood. Worth watching. On the sports side, Conor McGregor is finally fighting again. UFC 329 pits him against Max Holloway in Las Vegas on Saturday, and the spectacle machine is fully operational. Five years away and the man still moves more needle than anyone else in combat sports. Respect the brand, question the timeline. The WNBA midseason awards conversation is heating up and A'ja Wilson is again the favorite for MVP and Defensive Player of the Year. Dominating both sides of the ball at the midpoint of back-to-back seasons is not hype, it is just production. She is the closest thing women's basketball has to a consensus undeniable. And the Kalshi-sports crossover is now a full article. You can trade event contracts on World Cup matches, including Belgium vs. Spain. Prediction markets eating sports betting from the inside out while regulators figure out what form to fill out first. The market does not wait for permission, and that should tell you something about every other asset class too.

Highlights

  • Marc Andreessen is now on a Federal Reserve task force, which is either the most hopeful thing that has happened to monetary policy in decades or the setup to a joke with a very long punchline.
  • CNBC asked 50 companies about prediction market trading policies and got answers from a 'handful' -- which means the other 45 are currently running a compliance process that will finish sometime in 2029.
  • Kalshi is now bridging gas price geopolitics AND World Cup futures in the same news cycle, which means prediction markets have officially eaten the entire information diet and nobody noticed until just now.
  • McGregor vs. Holloway is Saturday and the UFC is printing money again -- same as it ever was.

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