Deadline drift

Strategy: Polymarket · Deadline Drift

When to use

Use this for before-date contracts, monthly/weekly threshold markets, election timing markets, or requests where time remaining is the core thesis.

What the agent should look for

• Exact market slug from POST /v3/markets/search.
• Reliable market_end from market metadata.
• Time remaining during the candidate backtest window.
• Probability drift near deadline in the filled history.
• Whether the market reprices gradually or with sharp catalyst jumps.
• User preference for holding to settlement or exiting earlier.

Backtest fit with filled data

Moderate fit. Filled TradeTick data can show whether price drifted in line with deadline pressure and whether exits would usually occur before binary resolution.

Limit: this does not produce true fair-probability forecasts; it only tests historical price behavior around deadlines.

Strategy logic

Enter when drift aligns with time decay or deadline acceleration. Exit before settlement unless the user explicitly asks for binary exposure into resolution.

Nautilus strategy shape

• Use on_trade_tick.
• Compare trade timestamp to market_end.
• Trade only between min_days_to_end and max_days_to_end.
• Exit using an exit_buffer_hours cutoff.

Example strategyConfig

{
  "market_end": "2026-07-01T00:00:00Z",
  "min_days_to_end": 2,
  "max_days_to_end": 21,
  "drift_threshold": 0.015,
  "order_size": 10,
  "exit_buffer_hours": 12
}

Iteration knobs

Knob	Effect
min_days_to_end	Avoids entering too close to settlement.
max_days_to_end	Avoids entering when the deadline is still distant.
drift_threshold	Higher values require stronger deadline repricing.
exit_buffer_hours	Larger buffers reduce resolution timing risk.

Failure modes

1. Market rules can resolve differently than expected.
2. Event risk can overwhelm smooth drift behavior.
3. Short windows overfit to one cycle.
4. Holding through settlement can produce binary outcomes unrelated to interim PnL.

User-facing framing

"This strategy trades deadline pressure, not certainty. I will backtest on filled TradeTicks to check whether the historical price drift is consistent and tradable, then suggest only cautious position sizing."