Linked to this Kalshi question:
If there are more than 250000 federal employees no longer working relative to the January 2025 employee count before Jan 2026, then the market resolves to Yes. Outcome verified from FRED.
Note the resolution criteria—what matters is the change in the count of federal employees, not whether we can confirm Trump and/or Elon directly fired them. For reference, the specific chart Kalshi links to appears to be this one.
@jb456 people can bet on the data as they’d like but keep in mind that tbe survey period doesn’t cover much of the major recent DOGE layoffs. So the Feb data can only tell us a limited amount
this is the behavior of someone willing to take a loss in order to manage public perception
@NicoMach and then bought fewer of the more expensive shares back up to 67, yeah 🤣
it loses him mana, but because the percentage is based on last filled limit orders it changes the number while keeping the total amount he has invested about the same.
If you were trying to inflate the perceived odds across multiple markets that indicate success of the administration on a limited per-market budget, you’d basically trade exactly like Brian
@ChrisMillsc5f7 if you believe that report, it should be an incredibly bear-ish sign for this market. In a time period the report says there were 280k government job cuts, the FRED series this market is resolved on moved a grand total of…15k jobs.
@polymathematic Hm maybe FRED is net and the other numbers are gross? Obviously all sorts of orgs are cutting positions all time. And I note the issue is cjanhe in net numbersso I guess I got it wrong!
@SteveAcomb right. But that’s already priced in. You can see discussion below on how the cuts are supposed to show up in October, if I remember correctly. We’ll see! Personally, I’m happier to bet on Elon’s and Trump’s track record for announcing things that don’t ever end up happening.
This is trading substantially below Kalshi, fyi:
https://kalshi.com/markets/kxfedemployees/federal-government-employee-count
@bens It makes much more sense to hedge with real money than fake money. I wonder how much of the discrepancy that explains.
-deleted due to embarrassing mistake-
@bens yeah i haven't been tracking the timings super closely but even for many of the layoffs that have been posted here, there are pretty long periods where they would count as part of the survey (even setting aside the buyout folks)
@bens It's not clear to how many of positions associated with people taking the buyouts are actually being eliminated. If those taking the buyout are replaced by new hires there may be little net effect on the number of federal employees.
https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-doge-civilian-job-cuts-fbcb154fbe9d5904f456aa3655e57c44
Roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs will be cut in the Defense Department, but fewer than 21,000 workers who took a voluntary resignation plan are leaving in the coming months, a senior defense official told reporters Tuesday.
To reach the goal of a 5% to 8% cut in a civilian workforce of more than 900,000, the official said the department aims to slash about 6,000 positions a month by simply not replacing workers who routinely leave.
This alone is a pretty big chunk of what’s needed