Wall Street Quants See an Edge in Polymarket Earnings Forecasts

Every quarter, Wall Street’s hordes of analysts engineer financial models, parse alternative data and jostle for access to executives as they attempt to predict company earnings. New research suggests the anonymous bettors on Polymarket might give them a run for their money.

A report from brokerage Wolfe Research finds that when Polymarket users bet that companies are likely to miss earnings estimates, the firms do so at a rate of 44%, more than double the historic benchmark of 18%. When bettors are very confident that a company will exceed estimates, that comes to pass 90% of the time, above the 81% norm.