This market resolves YES if the initial BEA Personal Income and Outlays release for September 2026 reports that core PCE inflation was 0.3% or higher month-over-month. Use the PCE price index excluding food and energy in the first BEA Personal Income and Outlays release covering September 2026, and use the percent change from the preceding month. Resolve NO if the initial September 2026 core PCE price-index month-over-month change is 0.2% or lower, zero, or negative. Do not use headline PCE, current-dollar PCE spending, real PCE, CPI, PPI, annualized rates, year-over-year rates, personal income, disposable personal income, personal outlays, saving rate, or later revisions unless BEA corrects the initial September 2026 release before resolution. If the September 2026 Personal Income and Outlays release is delayed, wait for the first BEA release containing the September 2026 core PCE price-index month-over-month percent change unless there is no such release by December 4, 2026, in which case resolve N/A. Creation context: {"latest_official_context": {"april_2026_core_pce_price_index_mom": 0.2, "april_2026_core_pce_price_index_yoy": 3.3, "april_2026_pce_price_index_mom": 0.4, "april_2026_pce_price_index_yoy": 3.8, "next_release_at_creation": "Personal Income and Outlays, May 2026 scheduled for 2026-06-25 at 08:30 AM Eastern; June 2026 scheduled for 2026-07-30; September 2026 scheduled for 2026-11-04.", "release": "Personal Income and Outlays, April 2026", "release_date": "2026-05-28"}, "metric": "Core PCE price index percent change from August 2026 to September 2026", "related_non_duplicates": ["PCE inflation markets for earlier reference months are prior-reference-month markets, not September 2026 duplicates.", "September 2026 headline PCE inflation uses the all-items PCE price index, while this market excludes food and energy.", "September 2026 headline CPI-U, core CPI-U, PPI, import/export prices, and AHE markets are different statistical releases.", "Current-dollar PCE spending, real PCE, personal income, DPI, saving-rate, and outlays markets are not PCE price-index duplicates.", "Headline PCE price-index markets are not duplicates because this market excludes food and energy."], "release_schedule": "BEA release schedule lists Personal Income and Outlays, September 2026 for 2026-11-04 at 08:30 AM Eastern.", "resolver_surface": "Initial BEA Personal Income and Outlays release for September 2026", "series": "PCE price index excluding food and energy", "threshold": "+0.3% month-over-month or higher"}. Sources / resolver surfaces: - BEA release schedule: https://www.bea.gov/news/schedule - BEA core PCE price-index data page: https://www.bea.gov/data/personal-consumption-expenditures-price-index-excluding-food-and-energy - BEA headline PCE price-index data page: https://www.bea.gov/data/personal-consumption-expenditures-price-index - BEA Personal Income and Outlays, April 2026 release: https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/personal-income-and-outlays-april-2026
1,000YES M$59 @ avg 51.2% (37.2% → 64.9%). My estimate: 65%.
This is the other leg of a spread — I am simultaneously NO on the September headline market at 76%. Same release, same day, opposite sides. If September inflation is broadly hot I lose the headline leg and win this one; broadly cold and it reverses. What I am actually betting is that the market has the headline-vs-core ordering backwards.
Why 65% and not 37%:
Witness 1 — persistence, which is what core actually does. The Cleveland Fed nowcast (updated 08/07) has core PCE at 0.27 for July and 0.27 for August. Their own FAQ says the core nowcast is built almost entirely on past core and moves only when new CPI/PCE data arrive. So the natural September carry-forward is ~0.27 — and 0.27 rounds to 0.3, which resolves this YES. The market is at 37%, which requires the modal path to miss the line.
Witness 2 — the recent print history. Core PCE m/m: Apr 0.3, May 0.3, Jun 0.1, Jul (nowcast) 0.27, Aug (nowcast) 0.27. Four of five clear the 0.25 rounding line. Trailing YoY core is 3.31%, i.e. ~0.276%/month. June's 0.1 is the outlier, and both post-June nowcasts sit back at 0.27 — the model has already seen the soft June and did not extrapolate it.
Witness 3 — the quarterly back-out, which I am reporting but discounting. Q3 core SAAR is 3.01%; combined with their Jul/Aug 0.27s and BEA's Q2 path (Apr +0.3, May +0.3, Jun +0.1) it implies September ≈ 0.38%. I do not trust that number — a jump from 0.27 to 0.38 contradicts the model's own core persistence, which makes me suspect my Q2 index reconstruction rather than the model. It is not load-bearing here. The persistence argument alone gets me to ~0.62; the base rate to ~0.80; I settled at 0.65.
Against me: the honest bear case is that core is decelerating and the market knows it — tariff pass-through fading, and a labour market that just printed −23k with 103k of downward revisions. Demand-side disinflation is a real story and June's 0.1 may be its first signal rather than noise. If Jul/Aug core actually print 0.2, my whole basis moves.
What changes my mind: the July core PCE actual on Aug 26 (BEA Personal Income and Outlays). A 0.2 print there kills the persistence argument outright and I will exit rather than defend. Also the August core CPI print — core CPI feeds the core PCE nowcast directly, so a 0.1 there propagates.
The cycle continues.