InTrade Presidential odds

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Bob Novak conceded Bayh, Sebelius, or Clark in that order.

[Mr. Morden]

And now Biden inches out Clinton as well, and she's down to (a very close) 4th place:

Sebelius 16.0
Bayh 15.0
Biden 15.0
Clinton 14.8
Kaine 13.0

[Mr. Morden]

Clinton back up to 2nd place, as nearly everyone but Sebelius and Clinton drops:

Sebelius 16.6
Clinton 14.7
Bayh 10.9
Biden 10.2
Kaine 10.0
Hagel 6.8
McCaskill 6.7
Reed 5.3
Clark 5.0
Gephardt 5.0

Portman, Crist, and Palin drop:

Romney 26.1
Pawlenty 12.5
Huckabee 11.0
Crist 7.9
Fiorina 7.0
Portman 6.8
Cantor 6.1
Palin 6.0
Thune 6.0
Jindal 5.0

[Mr. Morden]

Clinton and Sebelius slide, but are still in the top 2:

Sebelius 14.8
Clinton 12.4
Bayh 11.5
Kaine 11.0
Biden 10.1
Hagel 9.4
McCaskill 6.9
Clark 5.6
Reed 5.4
Gephardt 5.0

Pawlenty drops into a tie with Fiorina for 4th place: (Editorial comment: the idea that Fiorina and Pawlenty are equally likely to be McCain's running mate is insane.)

Romney 28.0
Crist 12.4
Huckabee 11.0
Fiorina 10.0
Pawlenty 10.0
Portman 6.8
Cantor 6.1
Palin 6.0
Thune 6.0
Jindal 5.5

[DownWithTheLeft]

Great time to buy Mark Sanford

[Mr. Morden]

Biden now up to 2nd place in Dem. VP odds:

Sebelius 15.5
Biden 13.0
Clinton 12.9
Kaine 10.1
Bayh 10.0
McCaskill 10.0
Hagel 6.8
Clark 6.6
Reed 5.5
Gephardt 5.1

Huckabee drops, and Palin now up to 2nd place.  Romney's lead grows:

Romney 33.0
Palin 13.0
Pawlenty 11.0
Crist 10.0
Fiorina 7.0
Huckabee 7.0
Portman 7.0
Thune 6.5
Cantor 6.1
Jindal 5.5

[Mr. Morden]

Dem. VP update only: Bayh takes the lead:

Bayh 18.2
Clinton 16.7
Sebelius 15.5
Biden 13.0
Reed 12.0

[Jacobtm]

Sell Reed...

I mean, I don't claim to have any idea who Obama might pick or why, but Reed is just absurd.

[Bay Ridge, Bklyn! Born and Bred]

Bayh moves on up to 21.5.   Reasonable VP choice.   Obama needs adult supervision.

[Mr. Morden]

Bayh and Sebelius now tied for 1st, and Edwards surges back into the top 10

Bayh 15.1
Sebelius 15.1
Biden 15.0
Clinton 13.8
Kaine 12.4
Edwards 8.0
Nunn 8.0
Hagel 7.0
McCaskill 6.7
Clark 6.5

Enormous surge for Pawlenty:

Romney 37.6
Pawlenty 32.3
Palin 13.0
Crist 10.0
Jindal 9.0
Huckabee 7.2
Fiorina 7.0
Portman 7.0
Thune 7.0
Cantor 6.1

The Pawlenty surge was probably brought on by this:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/23/1216673.aspx

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[Mr. Morden]

Bayh again alone in first place, Clinton slowly sinking, Hagel drops out of the top 10, and I have no idea why Edwards is still doing so well:

Bayh 19.8
Sebelius 15.1
Biden 13.4
Kaine 12.6
Clinton 9.2
Nunn 9.0
Edwards 7.5
McCaskill 6.7
Clark 6.5
Reed 6.1

Pawlenty drops (but is still a solid 2nd); Portman and Thune gain:

Romney 38.7
Pawlenty 25.0
Palin 15.0
Portman 11.7
Crist 10.0
Thune 10.0
Huckabee 7.2

Here are the top traded items by total volume (between the two VP markets); I give the name, and then the number of shares traded to date:

Hagel 21,961
Clinton 4248
Jindal 2332
Edwards 1940
Romney 1743

It looks like the bulk of those Hagel shares were traded on just one day, July 20.  I have no idea why there was so much activity then.

[Mr. Morden]

Big surge for Bayh; Kaine moves up to 2nd place; Reed gains despite ruling himself out; Clinton sinks further:

Bayh 30.0
Kaine 18.0
Sebelius 15.1
Biden 14.1
Reed 10.0
Nunn 9.0
Edwards 7.5
McCaskill 6.0
Clinton 5.5

Pawlenty and Crist gain; huge gains for Ridge:

Romney 39.0
Pawlenty 30.0
Crist 13.0
Palin 13.0
Portman 11.7
Ridge 10.0
Thune 10.0
Huckabee 7.2

Ridge's gains are likely because of this news story, which claims that the short list consists of Pawlenty, Romney, and Ridge:

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/07/21/daily49.html

No one news organizations have picked up on the story, so I doubt it's true.

[Mr. Morden]

Big surges for Kaine and Gephardt; Reed and Nunn drop below 5:

Bayh 34.9
Kaine 30.0
Sebelius 13.1
Biden 10.1
Gephardt 8.5
Edwards 7.3

Pawlenty and Romney drop, but remain in the top two; Thune drops to 5:

Romney 30.0
Pawlenty 25.0
Palin 15.0
Crist 13.0
Portman 10.0
Ridge 10.0
Huckabee 8.0
Cantor 6.0

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Winner
Democrat 66.6
Republican 33.0
Field 1.4

Democratic odds by state
DC 96.3
IL 95.0
HI 95.0
MD 95.0
DE 94.0
RI 92.5
NY 92.0
MA 91.5
CA 90.0
ME 90.0
MN 90.0
NJ 90.0
OR 90.0
WA 90.0
VT 89.0
CT 88.0
WI 88.0
IA 81.5
PA 71.5
NM 70.0
MI 70.0
NH 67.0
CO 66.0
OH 63.5
VA 62.0
NV 51.2
MO 49.0
FL 42.0
MT 39.0
IN 38.0
NC 30.0
ND 27.5
AR 20.0
SD 20.0
GA 18.5
MS 17.3
AK 16.0
AZ 16.0
SC 15.0
NE 14.5
TX 13.4
WV 13.0
LA 12.7
TN 12.2
OK 11.3
KS 10.5
KY 9.0
ID 8.0
UT 7.5
WY 7.5
AL 7.0

Colorado is the critical swing state

[TheresNoMoney]

According to these odds, Obama wins all the Kerry states +Iowa, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia and Nevada. Makes a lot of sense to me.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Big surges for Kaine and Gephardt; Reed and Nunn drop below 5:

Bayh 34.9
Kaine 30.0
Sebelius 13.1
Biden 10.1
Gephardt 8.5
Edwards 7.3

Bayh just crashed back down to more reasonable values.

Kaine 31.9
Bayh 25.0
Sebelius 15.0
Biden 12.4
Gephardt 8.5
Edwards 7.3

[Beet]

Big surges for Kaine and Gephardt; Reed and Nunn drop below 5:

Bayh 34.9
Kaine 30.0
Sebelius 13.1
Biden 10.1
Gephardt 8.5
Edwards 7.3

Pawlenty and Romney drop, but remain in the top two; Thune drops to 5:

Romney 30.0
Pawlenty 25.0
Palin 15.0
Crist 13.0
Portman 10.0
Ridge 10.0
Huckabee 8.0
Cantor 6.0

This was an opportunity for implicit arbitrage.

[Torie]

OK I will bite. What is the "implicit arbitrage?"

[Flying Dog]

Gephardt wtf?

[kevinatcausa]

The top 10 Republican prices alone added up to 117.0.  Assuming that Intrade allows shorting, you could have sold 1 share of every Republican possibility, leading to a guaranteed 17% gain no matter who was actually chosen.  I assume that this is what the "implicit arbitrage" was referring to. 

[Beet]

OK I will bite. What is the "implicit arbitrage?"

Arbitrage is taking advantage of the price differential between two markets for the same good. For example, if good X costs $20 in New York and 2,000 yen in Tokyo, and the exchange rate is 110 yen to one dollar, you could borrow 2,000 yen in Tokyo to buy the good, sell it in New York, and convert your $20 into 20x110=2,200 yen, for a net profit of 200 yen.

In Intrade markets, since what is being sold are not goods per se, but good representing the likelihood of mutually exclusive events, each contract implies the likelihood of the event not occurring, as well as the likelihood of other mutually exclusive events not occurring, as well as the likelihood that it will occur.

In the case of the Republican VPs, since
25+15+13+10+10+8+6 = 87 as a series of mutually exclusive events, the sum probability of Pawlenty, Palin, Crist, Portman, Ridge, Huckabee, and Cantor being selected as implied by these seven contracts together is 87%; conversely, the maximum implied probability of Romney being selected is 13%. If these numbers are correct, it is implied that the price of Romney being selected is at a maximum of 13.

However, the Romney contract gives his price of being selected at 30.

Hence, there is an implied price differential, which you can take advantage of. By shorting the contracts of all of the players mentioned, you know that their sum total can be no greater than 100 on expiration (one will expire at 100 and all the rest will expire at 0, if you are unlucky), but you can short them together for the price of 117.

[Torie]

The top 10 Republican prices alone added up to 117.0.  Assuming that Intrade allows shorting, you could have sold 1 share of every Republican possibility, leading to a guaranteed 17% gain no matter who was actually chosen.  I assume that this is what the "implicit arbitrage" was referring to. 

The bid asked spread probably swamps that.

[Beet]

The top 10 Republican prices alone added up to 117.0.  Assuming that Intrade allows shorting, you could have sold 1 share of every Republican possibility, leading to a guaranteed 17% gain no matter who was actually chosen.  I assume that this is what the "implicit arbitrage" was referring to. 

The bid asked spread probably swamps that.

The current bids for REP.VP add up to about 125.

[Mr. Morden]

Big time surge for Kaine in the Dem. VP market:

Kaine 45.0
Bayh 20.0
Sebelius 20.0
Biden 12.2
Gephardt 8.5
Edwards 7.3

[Mr. Morden]

The Kaine-Bayh gap narrows considerably; big shakeup in the 2nd tier:

Kaine 30.1
Bayh 26.0
Sebelius 18.0
Biden 10.7
Schweitzer 5.6
Edwards 5.0
Clinton 4.0
Nunn 4.0
Reed 4.0
Zinni 4.0

Pawlenty now barely edges out Romney in the top spot on the GOP side; Palin gains while Crist, Portman, and Ridge drop:

Pawlenty 30.0
Romney 29.6
Palin 20.0
Thune 6.0
Huckabee 5.1
Cantor 5.0
Crist 5.0
Giuliani 5.0
Portman 5.0
Ridge 5.0