State of the PROPHET NOTES

#5: A mixed month

May 08, 2025

Welcome to the fourth State of the PROPHET NOTES. As a reminder I am using this series to give you an update on my performance on prediction markets as well as a high-level outlook for the next month.

After a somewhat shaky performance at the beginning of the month, I followed with a couple of strong bets and remained committed to my highest conviction positions to come out with a very good performance.

Summary

March proved to be a profitable month:

I started April with $5,992 in my portfolio.
Today my portfolio stands at $10,400.
I injected additional $2,366 at the end of the month.
Total ROIC is 34% for the month and 162% for the year. Percentages are calculated on the normalized bankroll.
All bankroll allocations below are on the basis of starting bankroll.

Deep Dives

This month’s deep dives focused on Trump and war. I covered:

Trump’s tariff plan along with all the implications, from Middle East to interest rates:
1. The markets covered:
2. There is a mixed performance:
  1. 62.97% return on 10% of my bankroll,
  2. I didn’t take that position ultimately as my orders were not filled before the price of No jumped,
  3. Same as above, missed my opportunity to enter,
  4. Here due to IMO unfair resolution of the market as tariffs on China were not in fact lowered up to this day, I took a loss of 6.67% of my bankroll
  5. I sold half my position for 150% profit and left the other half for a 162.82% total profit for now on 6% of my bankroll,
  6. I hold my US recession position with a 8.17% loss for 10% of my bankroll.
One market rundown where I also had a mixed performance:
1. 0.7% bankroll loss on Elon Musk not saying tariffs 5+ times,
2. 0.5% bankroll loss on Houthis ending attacks on shipping (that was a bit of a shocker, but luckily my orders were not filled),
3. 101.61% gain on my No Israel x Hamas ceasefire by end of June position with 5.17% of my bankroll
4. 43.03% gain on my No TikTok sale announcement before June 19 position with 2.34% of my bankroll
Yemen Civil War deep dive, where besides Israel x Hamas ceasefire I covered Iran Nuclear Deal market where I hold Yes position with 10.85% of my bankroll for a current gain of 8.17%.
Update on the Ukraine war situation where I have:
1. Yes on Trump exiting negotiations (which I believe that already happened…) with 8.76% of my bankroll for a current loss of 76.27%,
2. No on Russia x Ukraine ceasefire by July with 5.04% of my bankroll for a current gain of 60.87%,
3. No on Russia x Ukraine ceasefire in 2025 with 11.48% of my bankroll for a current gain of 36.23%.

Other Major Predictions

Taking a look on other major predictions from Weekly Global Outlooks and X I will divide them in 2 categories.

In The Green

I have one big position that is massively on the green now on Seer Prediction Market platform:

Yes on Karol Nawrocki to advance to the second round of Polish presidential election which I entered with 18.35% of my bankroll for a current gain of 149%.

I had a couple of interesting trades that finished in the green:

TikTok sale announced before May No with 3.8% of my bankroll for 44.93% profit.
No on US anti-cartel operation before May with 2.67% of my bankroll for 25% profit.

In The Red

Only one position to report:

Yes on Greenland vote for independence in 2025 for 1% of my bankroll

Bankroll Comments

At the moment I have 27.95% of my bankroll available for betting on the new markets.

Most of the position are yet unclear in terms of resolution ie. I hold no bonds for now.

As promised, this month I focused on tariffs, the Middle East as well as Polish election with deep dive on it coming in the next few days. I also spent a lot of the month following the Ukrainian war developments closely as there was a lot of turmoil around the potential peace deal.

As I increase my activity on prediction markets I feel like the current format is getting to complex to follow, I’ll try to make it more clear next month.

Also to explain why I said that I had mixed month - my Polymarket performance was choppy with some unfair resolutions and simple mistakes (like entering Trump exiting negotiations with too much size). While my Nawrocki position on Seer represents majority of my gains this month, my Polymarket profit for the month is 8.34% which is still very strong, especially if I compare it to TradFi returns.

Looking ahead I will be focused on Polish election, the Middle East which for now represents my highest conviction war region when it comes to my long-term theses and I may look into the India-Pakistan situation as the slow escalation seems to continue there.

I will be staying mostly away from the tariffs markets for the time being as I believe that rules are not precise enough to hold sizable positions there. Vague changes and announcements resolve markets that in my opinion are created for more consequential policy changes.

Wrap Up

Well, overall it was another very strong month in a very strong year. Looking back just a few month, my bankroll has increased more than 5x between injections and returns (these are normalized to bankroll size so regular injections compounded throughout the year) and I’m looking to continue the pace.

For now I will be enjoying Lisbon and writing my Polish election deep dive to some nice glass of Vinho Verde. Stay strong and see you on X!

This is not official investment or life advice. Do your own research. This are only my opinions and I encourage anyone to do their own research before putting any money anywhere.