I will not be betting in this market as it is beyond The Subjective Clusterfuck Horizon. My focus for resolution will be on how non-editorial content in major international press like CNN and the Economist frame the ultimate outcome. I can consider editorial content secondarily if one side seems to be having a victory lap while the other is mostly silent. I will not be waiting for midterm elections, but snap polling could factor in if it's outside of expected partisan outcomes of "slightly against the GOP." "Other" could end up meaning anything from "an unexpected tradeoff ends up the centerpiece of the resolution" to "Democrats discover super saiyan powers and get GOP concessions somehow," but is overall fairly unlikely.
The spirit of this market is about who wins the shutdown and in what way. Feel free to ask clarifying questions in the comments.
Update 2025-11-09 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): For resolution purposes, a "clean" CR and a "neutral" CR will be treated as basically the same, unless some new procedural twist causes a "clean" CR to be widely considered a disastrous change of the status quo for one party.
Update 2025-11-09 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Creator is considering delaying final resolution until after the Obamacare vote in December, which would be used as a proxy for whether to resolve in favor of Dems or GOP. Final decision pending trader feedback.
Update 2025-11-09 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Creator is considering waiting for the December Obamacare vote as a key factor in determining resolution. If the December vote goes in favor of Dems, the market would likely resolve for Dems (as they would have won polling and gotten an outcome close to a clean CR). This suggests the final resolution may be delayed until after the December vote to better assess who "won" the shutdown.
1,000
My tentative move here is to push final resolution until we see how the Obamacare vote in December goes. I think that should be a good proxy for whether to resolve in favor of Dems or GOP. @traders what do you think? Should I close now or keep it open until that follow-up?
@Panfilo although Iâm expecting the continued both-sides victory lap. If the Dems come out in tears and the GOP are celebrating, your description suggests the Rs would win this one
@Panfilo Apparently I sold my shares earlier this week, but I'd personally say passing the spending package as written with the promise of a future vote on ACA subsidies instead of putting ACA subsidies in the spending package is in-and-of-itself a fairly large concession from the Democrats, even if it manages to pass in December
@Marnix But imagine that the December vote goes the way of the Dems and then this market looks pretty silly: the spirit is who "wins" the sutdown, and the Dems would have both won polling and gotten an outcome pretty close to a clean CR.
@Panfilo I agree. If dems get what they want in a few weeks, thatâs a win. Certainly not guaranteed though
In some ways, I think the promise of a vote is the most good-faith way to end it (as opposed to cramming it into the bill), because if itâs actually supported then it should pass a vote on its own. I also understand that good faith is weakness when itâs not being reciprocated
@Panfilo I have a stake in mostly neutral CR resolving YES, but I think that it's a pretty clear "Dems conceded." If the current state is "well we dont know if theyll get something there's just a vote" that sounds like definitely a downgrade from "definitely do achieve stated goals re healthcare" no matter how the vote itself goes
@copiumarc to be fair, nobody is suggesting the media wonât attack the dems for being weak on this, just that we wonât really know until the vote if they did in fact achieve their stated goals. The criteria specifically gives the media/perception landscape post-shutdown as the key signal, not the contents of the bill signed
The description mentions not waiting until the midterms, but waiting for the vote which is only on the table because of the shutdown is imo a reasonable extension of âthe shutdownâ
@Gen The way I see it is this:
Let's suppose that we're stuck in a room together, and you have the key, and I pickpocket you. We wait a day or two and we're both like really hungry and stuff. My offer is "you open the door and I run the other direction really fast (although I'm really not fast)." Your offer is something like "give me back my wallet and I'll open the door. I can toss you a fifty if you want."
If we reach a "compromise" of we open the door, then I decide between taking your wallet and thinking you're a really nice person and therefore giving it back, even if I do give back the wallet, I'm not sure that deciding at the time to open the door and defer the decision can be viewed as anything other than caving. Even if you do get your wallet back, you are not getting your wallet back in the context of being a really good negotiator, but dumb luck
ie even if Republicans for some reason later decide to capitulate and hand the Sun, Moon, and stars to the democrats, Trump resigns to pursue his real passion of idk fricking skydiving, JD Vance hits his head really hard and makes Zohran Mamdani VP, it can't be viewed in context as Democrats winning the shutdown. It would be Democrats conceding in the shutdown and then the GOP doing an LSD
@copiumarc I donât disagree with that (though, I donât really love the analogy), Iâm just following the description to try and establish a reasonable timeline to assess who âwonâ.
If the dems end the shutdown now for a future vote that they win, it is fundamentally better than continuing the shutdown to ultimately include it in the funding bill
Whether the public/media sees it that way or not, we wonât know until we actually see the vote. Description has always been to wait and see perception, why wouldnât we wait for the vote? The only hard line was
I will not be waiting for midterm elections, but
Seems totally reasonable to wait a few weeks tho, even if it is inevitable that the dems look like losers both now and then
If you infinitely run down the âthey should hold out for Xâ line of thought, Dems should hypothetically refuse to sign anything until the republicans concede to every single one of their policy ideals. The stated goal was ACA, weâll know soon enough if they got it. Even before any vote, we will see their media strategy, public response, etc. .. but if they are going to claim it as a win because of the vote, the outcome of the vote is likely going to be determinative
On the one hand, the correct analysis of the shutdown is that the dems flinched. I think there is basically 0 chance of the ACA thing passing, it's more an effort to put republicans on the record for voting against it, and that's why it's a giant concession. But if it passed, maybe it'd be fair to say dems knew something we didn't and it wasn't a major concession.
But I think if it's unreasonable to say today that the vote passing has odds above 50%, then it should be considered a major concession. Maintaining the status quo going from 100% odds (dems winning the shutdown) to 40% odds I don't think could count as a mostly neutral CR. I'd personally put the odds now at more like 1% though and that influences how I'm looking at it. I don't really take much issue with the market staying open, but if it were me I would resolve it now.
@JonathanRay Should be basically the same for this market's purposes, unless some new twist of procedure causes a "clean" CR to be widely considered a disastrous change of the status quo for one party.
@traders What's the most credible source that Rs might actually end or modify the filibuster over this? And a related market, while we're at it:
@JoshuaHedlund I agree that would make sense at the procedural level, but I like my framing for the policy outcome level.