The Senate has flipped. On August 11 the Democratic Senate control contract priced at 46.5% and Republicans were the favourite. Today it sits at 65.5%, a nineteen point move in six weeks, with seven of those points arriving in the last seven days alone. This article breaks down what changed: the crossover that came the day after our last midterms guide and then stalled for five weeks, the eight contested Senate races that every moved the same direction in the same week, the Republican seat ladder collapsing from the top while 76% of the money sits on legs priced under 6%, the House at 92.5% and no longer carrying the interesting question, and the two fastest moving markets on the board that you should trust least. Every price is live on ApeX Omni, where Polymarket order books are integrated directly. Political Markets Season Stage 3 covers the U.S. Midterm Elections and closes 27 September.

The Senate Just Flipped: 5 Things That Changed in Six Weeks

S&P Global releases its September flash PMI at 9:45am Eastern today, into a market that has split in two.

The Nasdaq 100 is up 4.34 percent over the past month and sits within one percent of its 52-week high. The Russell 2000 is down 3.91 percent and sits roughly 6 percent below its own. Eight points of divergence in four weeks, with the mega caps earning globally and small caps earning at home.

PMI is a survey of domestic business activity, which is why it speaks to that gap.

August set a high bar: a composite of 56.0, a 52-month high and a beat against a 54.0 estimate, with services at 56.8 and manufacturing easing to 53.2 on the flash. Above 50 means expansion.

Here are five markets tradeable on ApeX that are most exposed to the print, each trading a different channel of the same number.

If Today's PMI Surprises, These 5 Stocks and Commodities Move First

This series has spent four pieces taking apart the market on a US invasion of Iran: what the question actually asks, what the diplomacy markets expect instead, why the regime is priced to survive, and why the Strait of Hormuz is not priced to reopen.

The odds opened at 13.5 percent in November 2025. It bottomed at 6.0 percent that December. On 30 March 2026 it reached 67.5 percent, meaning the market considered a ground offensive more likely than not. Today they sit at 15.5 percent on a $67.0M book, within two points of where it began.

Every one of those moves maps to an event. None of them changed where the number ended up.

From 6% to 67% and Back: 5 Things a Year of the Iran War Revealed

Underneath the invasion contract, which now prices at 15.5 percent, sit the markets that actually move oil. They have reached a verdict.

A contract asking which month Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal prices its leading outcome, no return at all in 2026, at 83.5 percent. A separate and far deeper binary on the same question prices a return by 31 December at 17.5 percent on $11.8M. The two agree within a point.

Meanwhile the workaround is being priced in. A restart of the Saudi East-West pipeline, which carries crude to the Red Sea and bypasses Hormuz entirely, prices at 82.5 percent by 31 October. The market expects the world to route around the blockage rather than clear it.

The Strait Does Not Reopen: 5 Things the Shipping Markets Say

Ali Khamenei was killed on 28 February in the strikes that opened this war. Seven months later, the market on who leads Iran at the end of 2026 prices his son Mojtaba at 84.2 percent.

That is the third largest Iran market on the board at $39.5M, and it is the least contested question in the entire complex. The Iranian regime falling before 2027 prices at 6.5 percent on $26.1M. A coup attempt prices at 8 percent. The exiled opposition, which has absorbed $34.5M across three separate markets, prices at 3 percent to lead.

The state is priced to hold. The currency is not: the rial passing 2.2 million to the dollar by the end of September prices at 87.5 percent.

The Regime Is Not Falling: 5 Things Iran's Succession Market Says

The first piece in this series covered the invasion contract itself, $66.5M at 16.5 percent. This one covers what the market thinks happens instead, and the answer is stranger than either war or peace.

The US announcing an end to the naval blockade by 31 December prices at 60.8 percent. A final US and Iran nuclear deal by the same date prices at 10.5 percent. Fifty points separate lifting the economic pressure from signing anything.

Peace talks have now failed seven consecutive deadlines on $9.13M of volume. The first date where a resumption prices above even money is 31 March 2027, three months after the invasion contract expires. And the most likely answer to where the next round happens is that there isn't one.

The War Ends Without a Deal: 5 Things the Market Says About Iran Diplomacy

A US invasion of Iran before 2027 prices at 16.5 percent on a $66.4M book, making it the second largest Iran market on the board and one of the largest single binaries anywhere on it.

That number has survived a lot. Since 28 February there have been US and Israeli airstrikes, the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader, a naval blockade, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the collapse of two separate negotiation rounds. None of it resolved this contract, because none of it met the bar the contract actually sets.

It has also survived the opposite. A US and Iran ceasefire is currently in force and every leg of that contract has resolved yes. The invasion price did not collapse with it.

The $66 Million Market on a US Invasion of Iran: 5 Things to Know

For five weeks there was a puzzle on the board. A Fed hike kept climbing toward and then past 50 percent, while Bitcoin rallied roughly a quarter straight through the repricing. Two readings of the same world, moving in opposite directions.

In the week from Friday 4 to Friday 11 September that gap closed, and it was crypto that moved. Bitcoin came off $80,956 to $77,030. Its contract for touching $85,000 in 2026 fell from 80.5 percent to 58.5 percent, a loss of twenty-two points, while the September hike contract rose 17.5 points to 60.0 percent.

What follows is how that repricing looked across five contracts, and what it teaches about reading markets that resolve on different dates.

How the Crypto Market Is Pricing the Fed Rate Decision: 5 Things to Know

The Fed decides on 16 September, three days after Stage 1 closes. A 25 basis point increase prices at 60.5 percent and no change at 39.5 percent, on a book that now carries $116.4M.

But Tuesday is not the whole trade. The market has already priced the two meetings after it, and the shape is more specific than the headline suggests. October prices a hike at 32.5 percent. December prices one at 59.5 percent.

That dip in the middle is the forecast. Not a run of consecutive increases, but a move, a wait, and another move. And roughly $184M across four separate books is positioned on a path that starts with something happening on Tuesday.

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