New Tradesports rankings

[Jake]

Explain shorting please.

[Jake]

Shorting is just selling shares of a contract without owning them, and thus "owning" negative numbers of that contract. In fact InTrade is zerosum, for every share owned someone must own a negative share, because what a share really is is a bet between two people on whether or not that happens.

So for example if I sold Paul shares at 8.0 without owning anything, what  I've really done is made a bet with some Paul fanboy, where I bet $9.20 times X amount of shares traded that Paul will not win, while he's bet $.80 times the amount of shares that he would. We'd both have the amount bed in our accounts frozen. Once the GOP nominee was chosen, I'd then have all my money unfrozen and earn an extra $.80 for every share I was betting against (minus a small handling fee InTrade takes on every transaction) while the Paul fanboy's account would lose all his money bet on it. Meanwhile if hell froze over and Paul somehow won the nomination, I'd lose all the frozen money in my account, while the Paul fanboy would have his money unfrozen plus gain $9.20 for every share he owned.

So, you short if you're certain (or nearly so) that an event won't happen?

[Jake]

So, if I was 100% sure Mitt Romney wouldn't be the nominee, I would short him now, therefore "betting" those with his stock that he wouldn't win?

[Jake]

Some explain the legal situation regarding funding the account as well.

[Jake]

So, if I was 100% sure Mitt Romney wouldn't be the nominee, I would short him now, therefore "betting" those with his stock that he wouldn't win?

But he will be...he will be, and Democrats around the country are grateful.

It was an example.

[Jake]

I'm playing a hunch, but I would buy Romney at this point.

Yeah. He has a good chance to win Michigan and will get a mild bounce that you can make money off in the next few days.