WASHINGTON — The prediction markets have spoken with uncommon conviction: a formal White House nomination for the next Federal Reserve Chair is, by nearly every wager on Polymarket, a foregone conclusion. With $13 million changing hands in a single trading session and odds fixed at 94%, the market consensus treats this announcement not as a matter of if, but of when — and, crucially, whom. Our correspondents are pressing every Georgetown dinner party and Treasury corridor for the name already whispered between the courses.

The stakes are considerable. The Federal Reserve Chair commands the levers of American monetary policy — interest rates, inflation discipline, the cost of every mortgage and business loan in the republic. A nomination sends immediate signals to Wall Street about the administration's economic temperament, and markets of the conventional variety tend to respond with enthusiasm or alarm in equal measure. Prediction markets attribute a 94% probability to Trump submitting a formal nomination message to the U.S. Senate before December 31, 2026.