How to read the board
A plain-English guide to what every label on the board means — and how to act on it.
What the board is
The board tracks Polymarket's geopolitics universe — prediction-market contracts that each price one specific question, like "will this strike happen?" or "will this ceasefire hold?" We read those contracts once a day, score each one, and group them by theater.
Because a contract prices a single outcome, its odds are a cleaner read on geopolitical risk than a broad market like oil — which moves for a thousand reasons at once.
The signals, explained
Every label on the board is one of these. Here's how to read each one.
Risk ↑ / Risk ↓ / ~flat
Which way risk moved over the past week. It's polarity-adjusted — we read each contract by what a "yes" outcome means. A ceasefire contract whose odds rise is risk going down; an escalation contract whose odds rise is risk going up. Small wobbles show as ~flat so noise doesn't read as a move.
Signal quality — Thin vs Solid
Is a price backed by real resting money, or could a single bet move it? We read the live order book and compare each contract with the rest of the board that day. Solid means the price sits on real depth; Thin means it's lightly backed — treat its moves with more caution.
⚠ Unusual activity
A big one-way move into a thin book that broad trading volume didn't back up. It can be early information, or it can be noise — we flag it honestly so you can look closer. It is never an accusation.
Theater risk pulse
A single risk read per region (e.g. Middle East, Russia/Ukraine), plus a cross-theater world view. Each pulse has a level (from Calm through Settled, Mixed, and Elevated, to Acute), whether the week's move is broad across many contracts or a one-off, and its momentum versus last week.
Point-over-point
Every reading is compared with its own recent history — each contract against its prior week, each theater against last week — so what you see is the change, not just the level.
From board to briefing
Every day, our briefing reads the board and turns the day's moves into plain language: what shifted, in which theater, how confident the signal is, and why it matters. The board is the data; the daily briefing is the read.
What this is — and isn't
- Market-implied, not predictions. The odds reflect what traders are pricing, not a forecast we issue.
- Descriptive, not causal claims. We describe what moved and how unusual it is — we don't assert that one thing caused another.
- Updated daily. Signals refresh once a day; fast-moving events can outrun the last reading.
- Not investment advice. CausalAlpha is a research and intelligence tool.
The concepts above are everything you need to read the board. The exact thresholds and weightings behind each label are our own — the calibration is what we bring; the meaning is yours to use.