Daily Market Mispricings: 2 Finance Events Where We Disagree With Polymarket — May 24, 2026

TL;DRNaly’s sharpest finance disagreement on May 24, 2026 is natural gas: the Polymarket prices YES at 24c for a May spike to $3.20, while we think fair value is 55c. We also fade WTI’s 69c YES on a drop to $85, marking it 40c fair. The common reason is path dependence: late-month realized trading range matters more than headline-driven narrative.

Polymarket is pricing two late-May commodity path bets as if the headline regime will dominate the tape. We disagree on both final answers. In one case, the market is overpaying for an oil collapse that still needs a very large downside move in very little time. In the other, it is underpaying for a natural-gas breakout even though the contract is already trading near the launch zone for a short squeeze higher.

Key Takeaways

We disagree with Polymarket on both selected finance contracts as of May 24, 2026.

Natural gas looks underpriced on the upside because $3.20 is close enough to the recent range that one weather or positioning burst can do the job.

WTI looks overpriced on the downside because inventories are tight enough and physical-market stress is firm enough to keep a late-month collapse below $85 hard to achieve.

In both contracts, the edge comes from path dependence: what matters is not the long-run fundamental story, but whether the remaining May window is wide enough for the trigger to print.

2 Mispricings at a Glance

Event Snapshot

Will WTI Crude Oil (WTI) hit (LOW) $85 in May?

Hit LOW $85 in May Resolves End of May 2026 Open as of May 24, 2026 76/100 confidence

Polymarket Top Answer YES 69%

Naly Top Answer NO 60%

Max Payout if Correct +69c

0c 50c $1.00

Polymarket Naly

Why we disagree: The market is pricing headline fear more than the actual distance still required to print sub-$85.

Event Snapshot

Will Natural Gas (NG) hit (HIGH) $3.20 in May?

Hit HIGH $3.20 in May Resolves End of May 2026 Open as of May 24, 2026 66/100 confidence

Polymarket Top Answer NO 76%

Naly Top Answer YES 55%

Max Payout if Correct +76c

0c 50c $1.00

Polymarket Naly

Why we disagree: The market is extrapolating loose storage and mild demand too linearly despite price already sitting near breakout territory.

How to read this: Polymarket Top Answer and Naly Top Answer show the final answer each side sees as most likely. Max Payout if Correct shows the gross upside from the current quote to the $1 settlement if the selected contract side wins. The horizontal graph still shows where that selected side sits on a 0c to $1 range for Polymarket versus Naly.

Event 1

Will WTI Crude Oil (WTI) hit (LOW) $85 in May?

MarketsContract · Hit LOW $85 in MayResolves End of May 2026Open as of May 24, 202676/100 confidence

+69c

Max Payout if Correct

Polymarket Top Answer YES 69%

Naly Top Answer NO 60%
Trade on Polymarket →

The market is pricing headline fear more than the actual distance still required to print sub-$85.

Causal Chain

Cause The market is leaning too hard on geopolitical headline volatility and assuming one more fast liquidation leg can force an $85 print.

↓

Effect But spot fundamentals still show tight enough crude and gasoline balances that each dip has supply support underneath it.

↓

Projection That leaves too little time for WTI to travel from the mid-$90s to sub-$85 unless a genuinely new bearish shock appears, not just recycled Iran-talk noise.

Key Factors

| Factor
▲ | Reuters reported WTI settled at $96.60 on May 22, 2026, still $11.60 above the $85 trigger after a volatile week.
▲ | Reuters and EIA both flagged a 7.9 million barrel U.S. crude draw for the week ended May 15, a tighter setup than a crash-priced contract usually wants.
▲ | Oil & Gas Journal noted U.S. crude inventories at 445.0 million barrels were about 2% below the five-year average for this time of year.
▼ | Reuters also reported that uncertainty around U.S.-Iran talks kept traders focused on shipping risk in the Strait of Hormuz rather than on immediate oversupply.
▲ | AP reported OPEC+ still plans only a modest output increase, which matters less if physical flows remain impaired.

Bayesian Calculation

Base rate: Market-implied YES is 69%, but that is too high given the remaining distance from settlement price to trigger.

Positive update: Iran-talk volatility and oil’s recent wide trading ranges do leave room for air pockets and forced de-risking.

Negative update: The latest inventory draw, sub-five-year-average crude stocks, and WTI’s May 22 close at $96.60 all argue that an additional double-digit drop is still a tail path, not the base case.

Naly estimate: YES 40%, which means 40c fair value on YES and a stronger 60c fair value on NO.

Alternative explanation: The market may be seeing a hidden fragility we are discounting: if diplomatic headlines suddenly improve and physical shipping risk collapses at the same time, crude could gap lower in a way that ignores the otherwise constructive stock picture.

What Would Make Us Wrong

We are wrong if a fresh macro liquidation wave or a real Iran de-escalation abruptly removes the geopolitical risk premium and turns late-May trading into a one-direction flush. A move from the mid-$90s into the mid-$80s requires a regime break, not just another noisy headline cycle.

Fresh Checks

Reuters: Oil prices settle higher on slow progress in US-Iran peace talks

EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report, released May 20, 2026

Oil & Gas Journal: EIA says U.S. crude inventories fell 7.9 million barrels

AP: OPEC+ countries to boost oil production modestly

Event 2

Will Natural Gas (NG) hit (HIGH) $3.20 in May?

ForecastContract · Hit HIGH $3.20 in MayResolves End of May 2026Open as of May 24, 202666/100 confidence

+76c

Max Payout if Correct

Polymarket Top Answer NO 76%

Naly Top Answer YES 55%
Trade on Polymarket →

The market is extrapolating loose storage and mild demand too linearly despite price already sitting near breakout territory.

Causal Chain

Cause The market is anchoring on loose storage, spring shoulder-season demand softness, and LNG maintenance.

↓

Effect But the contract only needs a marginal move from around $3.02 toward $3.20, and that is the kind of burst natural gas can deliver quickly once weather and positioning line up.

↓

Projection So the bearish macro backdrop can coexist with a bullish path-dependent outcome inside the remaining May window.

Key Factors

| Factor
▲ | TradingNews reported front-month natural gas settled at $3.018 on May 22, 2026, leaving the contract only about $0.18 below the $3.20 trigger.
▲ | EIA-linked storage data showed a 101 Bcf build for the week ended May 15, with stocks at 2,391 Bcf, which is bearish in level terms but not enough by itself to rule out a short-term spike.
▲ | The American Gas Association said NOAA projected moderate to high probabilities for above-normal temperatures through May 24, 2026, raising the odds that cooling demand starts to matter.
▲ | AGA also noted early-May softness may be ending, which matters because gas price path can reprice faster than weekly storage tables update.
▲ | Reuters reported lower LNG feedgas flows during maintenance, but that is already widely known and therefore easier for the market to over-discount.
▲ | Natural gas only needs to tag a high, not hold above $3.20 into month-end, which makes intraday volatility more valuable than the market is pricing.

Bayesian Calculation

Base rate: Market-implied YES is 24%, starting from a bearish interpretation of storage and demand.

Positive update: Price is already near $3.00, above-normal temperature odds are building, and natural gas routinely overshoots on relatively small weather or flow surprises.

Negative update: Storage remains above both year-ago and five-year levels, and LNG maintenance plus soft shoulder-season demand still cap the baseline.

Naly estimate: YES 55%, which means 55c fair value on YES and a 31c edge versus the current 24c market price.

Alternative explanation: The market may simply be right that this is still a shoulder-season market with too much gas around and too little urgent demand, in which case $3.20 stays just out of reach even if prices grind modestly higher.

What Would Make Us Wrong

We are wrong if the $3.00 area keeps acting as a ceiling instead of a launch point, especially if another large storage injection lands alongside softer weather revisions and LNG maintenance persists longer than expected. In that case, the contract drifts higher too slowly and runs out of calendar.

Fresh Checks

TradingNews: Natural gas settles at $3.018 while $3.00 holds

American Gas Association: Natural Gas Market Indicators, May 15, 2026

Oil & Gas 360: EIA weekly natural gas storage rose 101 Bcf

Reuters: U.S. natural gas prices dip on weak demand, high storage levels

Conclusion

The watchpoints into the rest of May 24, 2026 are straightforward. For WTI, the catalysts are Iran-talk clarity, Strait of Hormuz shipping conditions, and whether inventory tightness keeps every dip shallow. For natural gas, the key is whether above-normal temperature risk and volatility can force a quick tag of $3.20 before storage and maintenance narratives regain control.

Methodology

Naly treats these contracts as binary path bets. If a contract trades at 24c YES, that is both the entry price and roughly the market-implied probability for a $1 payout on that side. If our estimate is 55% YES, the matching fair price is 55c on that same side. We separate the final answer from the payout math, compare our probabilities with market-implied odds, and benchmark the process against our public track record.

Disclaimer

This article is informational and reflects Naly’s probability estimates as of May 24, 2026, not investment advice. Prediction-market prices move quickly, and binary contracts can be highly volatile even when the underlying macro view is broadly correct.