2012 Intrade rankings

[J. J.]

Winning Individual

Obama 71.8%
Romney 28.2%

Buy Romney. 

[J. J.]

Winning Individual

Obama 71.8%
Romney 28.2%

Buy Romney. 

See, I told you all to buy.

[J. J.]

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Well, it was undervalued.  It might still be, bit I'd wait for tomorrow morning to determine that.

[J. J.]

For some reason, Romney is now at 40.6 on Intrade.

[J. J.]

Intrade tends to be retrospective.  It is probably another "buy Romney" time, simply because his numbers will close there. 

[J. J.]

Intrade tends to be retrospective.  It is probably another "buy Romney" time, simply because his numbers will close there. 

Actually being that Romney has dropped since the debate, the market appears to be anticipating a drop in the polls. How else to explain Romney going from +4 to +6 on Gallup while dropping on intrade

That is why I said that it was a buy opportunity. 

[J. J.]

Romney is still undervalued.

He's probably still a "buy" but it might be tempted to sell short tomorrow and then get back in after the debate.

[J. J.]

Romney is hovering around 40.  Sell short.  Either way, you've made a profit. 

[J. J.]

The weird thing is that Romney was in the 40s for most of the summer when he was trailing by a couple of points nationally and not doing that great on the map. When he brought the race to a tie at the RNC he hit 45. He is certainly doing better now than he was in the summer and arguably better than he was at the end of the RNC (being that Obama was bound to get some kind of bump out of the DNC). So Romney still feels undervalued by around 5.  Like I said in another thread, if the RCP avg for OH flips Romney's way he will shoot up to 55 or 60.

I think, in terms of the market, the time to take a profit.  You can jump back in after the debate, if conditions warrant. 

[J. J.]

If you jumped out of Romney, jump back in.

[J. J.]

It is more of a market reaction to the polling and that Romney/Ryan won the debate series.  It is a retrospective market reaction.

[J. J.]

As I noted Romney's polling is better now than back when he hit 45 in August. I think Romney was undervalued, now the market is correcting, especially as Romney is doing well in national polling.

Romney's at 44.6 currently.  He's up about 5-7 points.

[J. J.]

This piece describes in detail what happened:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/23/how-to-manipulate-prediction-markets-and-boost-mitt-romneys-fortunes

As noted, an ephemeral effect.  This has building most of the afternoon. 

[J. J.]

Obama - 52.7
Romney - 47.1

This is rather intriguing. Perhaps someone has inside information on Trump's upcoming revelation and it's worse than most of us are fearing?

It just could be market reaction to the end of the debates, plus the close polls.  There has been a 4 point shift in D wins OH numbers. 

[J. J.]

Ah, here's an explanation among the comments....

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D win in OH is now 48%. 

[J. J.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/23/how-to-manipulate-prediction-markets-and-boost-mitt-romneys-fortunes/

This wasn't it.  Obama's numbers were falling faster than Romney was gaining.  Also OH has been moving dramatically. 

[J. J.]

What's going on? Mittens up to 45 and Obama down to 53?

Libya.

Romney was creeping up all day, but then he started moving in the early evening.

OH has really moved, and at some points, is below 50 for a D win.  

[J. J.]

The aggregate wisdom of markets predicts much more than it reacts.  You don't need to look for the news moving this market right now, it probably doesn't exist right now.  The news will come later if the market's prediction is correct.

I actually go with this being reflective, at least short term.

[J. J.]

The numbers don't seem to be manipulated; investors were selling Obama, and a D win in OH. 

[J. J.]

Even on the market on who wins the presidency, we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of $18 000 swinging the market yesterday. Which would be a staggering amount of money for me to bet, but is obviously not that much in the grand scheme of things. And, as Nate Silver points out, all the other betting markets have Obama significantly higher (and more stable) than Intrade did yesterday, which should be an opportunity for arbitraging if the markets are at all liquid.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/oct-23-the-virtues-and-vices-of-election-prediction-markets/?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-thecaucus

There was also the belief that Romney was undervalued on Intrade.  He was around 37% prior to the third debate. 

[J. J.]

I hope more Republicans waste their money on attempting to drive up Romney's odds to make themselves feel better about the state of the race. The lengths these people will go to delude themselves is hilarious at this point, yet also still scary. They're going to explode when Obama is declared the winner of Ohio relatively early in the night

Few if any are.  It was natural for someone undervalued to increase in value.  No delusion nor manipulation. 

[J. J.]

Obama is now hovering around 60, but OH is back up 60 as well.