ARK invest uses Kalshi to track market expectations

ARK Invest is adding Kalshi’s prediction market data to its research process as more institutions test whether these markets can help measure expectations in real time. 

Meanwhile, the move places prediction market signals alongside ARK’s existing work on market trends, policy events, and company milestones, showing how the data is being used for research and portfolio planning beyond direct trading.

According to the announcement, ARK will use Kalshi data to track real-time expectations and support its market-based research. The firm also plans to study signals tied to trading activity, regulatory approvals, and technology progress as part of that process.

Kalshi said ARK will also use the data in risk management and hedging. Cathie Wood said, “Bringing prediction markets into institutional workflows is a natural next step for innovation in financial research,” while ARK Research Director Nick Grous said these markets offer “some of the purest expressions of risk around key economic and company-specific outcomes.”

In an X post, Wood said on X that ARK has also been working with Kalshi on markets tied to topics the firm follows, including macroeconomic releases and scientific milestones. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said some of those markets are already live, including contracts linked to non-farm payrolls, deficit-to-GDP ratios, and business key performance indicators.

The partnership adds to a wider push to use prediction market data as a decision tool. Kalshi has grown into one of the main regulated platforms in the sector, and firms are testing whether market-based probability signals can complement surveys, analyst models, and event-driven research.

Fed and academic research track the same trend

A Federal Reserve paper published last month said Kalshi’s macro markets can provide a “high-frequency, continuously updated, distributionally rich benchmark” for researchers and policymakers. The paper compared Kalshi data with surveys and market-based forecasts and argued that prediction markets can offer a real-time view of changing expectations.

Academic work has also examined how prediction markets react to political shocks. A recent paper using Polymarket’s 2024 presidential election data studied trading around the Biden-Trump debate, the assassination attempt on Trump, and Biden’s withdrawal from the race, showing how traders adjusted positions as events unfolded.