This market uses the U.S. Department of Labor's first published advance national seasonally adjusted initial unemployment-insurance claims figure for the week ending Saturday, October 31, 2026.
YES if that figure is at least 195,000. Exactly 195,000 counts as YES. NO if it is below 195,000.
Use the figure labeled advance initial claims in the Seasonally Adjusted Data section of the DOL Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims release. Do not use continuing claims, the four-week moving average, unadjusted claims, or separate federal-employee/veteran claims. Later revisions, including subsequent corrections to the initial publication, do not change resolution.
The release is expected Thursday, November 5, 2026 at 8:30 am Eastern Standard Time. Trading closes five minutes beforehand: November 5 at 8:25 am EST / 5:25 am PST / 13:25 UTC. If publication is delayed, trading stays closed and the first qualifying release still determines the result. Resolve N/A if no qualifying official first-release figure is published by November 12, 2026 at 11:59 pm EST (November 13 at 04:59 UTC), or if the original first-release figure cannot reliably be established.
Primary source: the DOL weekly claims release, currently available at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf ; a dated official DOL copy of the qualifying initial release takes precedence over later-updated series. FRED ICSA can corroborate the release schedule, but later revised FRED observations are not the resolution value: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA .
Context, not resolution data: DOL's October 29 release reported 194,000 advance claims for October 24 and a 196,750 four-week average. That dated report is https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/newsreleases/ui-claims/20261624.pdf . The starting 55% is a subjective near-coin-flip estimate, not a calibrated statistical forecast.
1,000