Good evening, traders!
Welcome to a very late edition of The Week Ahead.
This week (or what’s left of it) marks the last week of the pro baseball regular season, meaning that we’re heading into the playoffs very soon. While traders have some teams as strong favorites for winning the championship, there are still some tossups, and the playoff picture definitely creates some room for upsets.
Completely switching topics, gas prices have become both volatile in price and as a topic of debate. So we’ll be covering what traders are forecasting for fuel prices too.
Last but not least, we’ve just received word that Taylor Swift is putting out a new single on Friday, just in time for the VMAs. So we’ll check out what traders are forecasting for the big release.
Let’s get into it.
Pro baseball playoff picture
The postseason officially starts on Sept. 29 with the best-of-three Wild Card Series, while the Division Series bats off on Oct. 3. Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Los Angeles D, Milwaukee, Boston and New York Y have all clinched playoff berths with Los Angeles D, Milwaukee and Atlanta locking up the NL West, NL Central and NL East respectively.
Over the weekend, Cleveland did what they needed to against the Athletics, sweeping the series to enter the final week one game ahead of Chicago WS in the AL Central. Chicago WS was able to recover from Friday’s loss to Detroit by also winning this weekend to stay right behind Cleveland.
Importantly, Chicago WS owns the tiebreaker over Cleveland, meaning that if the teams finish with the same records, Chicago WS would claim the division.
Traders have both teams essentially neck and neck to win the American League Central Division and the final week sets up an interesting contrast. Cleveland heads to Boston tonight, likely a more difficult series than the Athletics, while Chicago WS travels to Kansas City before ending the regular season at home against Colorado, a team traders predict will finish with the worst record this season.
Heading south, Houston and Texas were tied for the AL West after Friday, but Houston was swept by Atlanta while Texas took two of three from Toronto, giving Texas a one-game division lead entering the final week.
Similarly to Cleveland vs Chicago WS, Houston owns the tiebreaker against Texas, meaning if Houston pulls even with Texas, they win the division.
But Houston has a very slim margin for error. Being three games behind Chicago WS for the final AL Wild Card spot creates a very possible binary between winning the AL West and missing October altogether.
Gas prices
If you’re in one of the 121 million American households with a car, you might have gotten a bit of a scare if you’ve been to the pumps in the past few weeks.
WTI crude has been trading around $92-$93 per barrel, with a large increase in price driven by disruptions and geopolitical risk in Middle Eastern oil infrastructure, namely transport through the Strait of Hormuz.
With prices having ballooned so much already, the question now becomes how much higher they can go.
As the end of the year gets closer and summer driving season and travel slow down, gas prices usually cool off with the weather. Unfortunately, traders don’t expect that to happen this year. The forecast for How high will US gas prices get this year? is sitting at $4.80, higher than the $4.50 forecast for Gas prices in the US this month?, meaning traders are expecting the trend to continue.
Taylor Swift's new single
Taylor Swift announced a brand new single, "Patient Zero," is dropping this Friday, September 25. It's her first new single since "I Knew It, I Knew You" from the Toy Story 5 soundtrack, and Kalshi traders are giving it a 91% chance of debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Then again, this is a brand new market, so it will probably be 99% by time you click.
According to Variety, the single appears tied to the Showgirl era, with Easter eggs pointing to the word "encore" fueling speculation that a sequel project or deluxe edition could be on the way. Many Swifties are, naturally, convinced there's more coming.
Swift is also expected at the MTV VMAs Sunday night to accept the inaugural Artist Director Honors, and she's got a 53% chance of winning Artist of the Year while she's there.
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