New Tradesports rankings

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I'm holding all my shares of Romney, but Huckabee at 3 is too good to pass up as an insurance bet.  I don't think he's going to win any caucuses or primaries, but I think his contract could get up into the double digits as Thompson fades.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

that's a different angle entirely.  but a solid point nonetheless

although if you short a bunch of 0.1s you can make more than that annually

On Tradesports, to short a contract at 0.1, you need to have $9.99 cash frozen on margin in case the contract pays off.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I don't even know why someone would want to sell a contract like that for 0.1.  You're literally risking $1,000 to make $1.

Contracts on Intrade are for $10.  You're betting $10.00 to win a penny.

I know, but it's the same ratio.

You don't have to put the money in up front.

They certainly put a freeze on my money when I short something.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Btw, the Intrade odds for Huckabee dropping out of the race by the end of 2007 have dropped all the way down to 35.0.

Still too high, I say.  Weak volume.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Romney is having a tremendous bump today: up about 15% to 27.0.

It's coming at the expense of Thompson almost in its entirity: he's down to about 20, if you split the bid and the ask.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

shucks i could have made a killing buy Romney....

He's only trading at 26–27.  I think there's still room to make money there.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

shucks i could have made a killing buy Romney....

He's only trading at 26–27.  I think there's still room to make money there.

I know there is... Smart people would trade for him, Huckabee, Richardson, and Biden... And its getting a little crazy with Hillary, so Obama as well.

I've already got positions in Huckabee, Richardson, and Romney.  Biden isn't going much of anywhere, I'm afraid.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

How long until Thompson starts to slide? By the start of November, I think he'll be down at least in the mid teens.

He's already started his slide.



One of the biggest movers for today: Democrat to win Nebraska's U.S. Senate race.  Nearly doubled, closing at 40.  I'm probably going to sell mine when Kerrey announces—I think there's too much hype there.  (Remember Breaux?)

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Gore has continued his climb to 9.5. Clinton is down a bit.

Gingrich announces he's not running, and falls to 0.1. The top 4 Republicans gain because of this. Paul is now a record high of 7.0. McCain is unchanged in a distant 5th. Huckabee falls.



Democrats
Clinton 66.2
Obama 16.4
Gore 9.5
Edwards 6.6
Richardson 0.6
Biden 0.4
Dodd 0.1

Republicans
Giuliani 36.8
Thompson 24.6
Romney 23.2
Paul 7.0
McCain 4.6
Huckabee 2.0
Rice 1.1
Gingrich 0.1

QUIK QUIK BUY MORE PAUL HES GOING TO 100

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Richardson looks like a good buy. I'm predicting that he, along with Thompson and Paul on the other side, will start to skyrocket this month.

Richardson is a terrible buy, really, because he's a terrible candidate.  And that's from someone who's currently long 25 shares of Richardson.

I have no clue why Paul would "skyrocket" when he's going nowhere in the polls with a 0% chance to win the GOP nomination.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Thompson is seriously crashing.  His share price has lost almost a third of its value since before the debate.

The guy just plain sucks at running for President.  Debates, fundraising, personal appearances—he's bad at it all.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Remember how GOPers a few months ago kept telling us about how we better be afraid of Thompson, and yes he still can win despite being a Bush clone and all that? Hahaha.

Gore 9.5
Paul 7.2
Rice 1.8

Wow, Intrade is still full of f**king morons.

Tell me about it.  I've made $50 off them in the last few months.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Whoa!  Glad I bought all that Huckabee at 3.

Though it is worth mentioning that his bid/ask is only 4.8/4.9, despite 6 being the last trade.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Wow to Huckabee at 6.9.  Nice gain, but I'm starting to think he may be getting unrealistically high.  Ditto for Thompson at 10.0: wow.  The folks with the money are finally beginning to understand what we knew all along.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Gore drops.

Paul passes Thompson for 3rd place. Ron Paul in 3rd place, LOL.  Paul is close to a record high, while Thompson is the lowest in several months.  If Thompson's crash and burn continues, he will fall below McCain soon. Huckabee also drops.

Democrats
Clinton 71.3
Obama 12.8
Gore 6.6
Edwards 4.0
Richardson 0.8
Dodd 0.4
Biden 0.3

Republicans
Giuliani 42.0
Romney 28.5
Paul 8.7
Thompson 8.4
McCain 7.1
Huckabee 4.5
Rice 1.2
Gingrich 0.2

The market has the GOP race all wrong.  Thompson is still a serious competitor, Paul is not.  Thompson belongs above 10, Paul belongs at 2.5 or lower.  Rice doesn't even deserve to be traded.  I mean, seriously.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

If Ron Paul gets to 10 on this thing, I may just have to actually get involved.

You might have some difficulty thanks to fascist Bill Frist, although according to Mr. Moderate there haven't been any problems. I've been considering doing the same as well.

The only problem with shorting Paul is that for example you have to have $92 frozen just so you can make $8 next August. Although on the other hand, that's still a better rate of return than a savings account or CD, so if anyone has some spare cash laying around...

My money apparently got deposited back before the Frist bill passed.  I think you can still get money to a Tradesports account, but you have to go through a lot of hoops to do it.  Paying by money order, for example.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

OK, yeah, that's what I thought.  That's (I think) why Rice is still trading at 1.0.  She was around 5.0 or so for a very long time, with high volume.  So lots of people bet on her one way or the other at that price.  Now the people who shorted her are closing their accounts by betting on her and the people who bet on her are closing their accounts by shorting her.  Both parties are then credited with the gain or loss.

That's almost certainly what's going on right now.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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?

I made a good chunk of change shorting GOP to win Nebraska when Hagel had yet to declare his retirement.  I figured he wouldn't be able to win a GOP primary anyway, and at 80 or so, the contract was just way overvalued.  I had no delusions that a Democrat, Kerrey or otherwise, would carry Nebraska.  Just that the odds of it happening were better than 100 - 80 = 20%.

When he dropped out, the contract fell to somewhere around 50, because Kerrey was almost certain to jump in.  That's when I "bought" the contract to cover my short position, because I doubted there'd be much movement on that contract towards the Democrat until November 2008.

Of course, now the contract for GOP to win Nebraska is back up in the stratosphere cause Kerrey chickened out.  Still made my money, though!

I love Intrade.  I should sink more money into it and make that my day job. 

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Ah, the problem with owning both Huckabee and Romney: When Huckabee gains in Iowa, it comes at the expense of Romney.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Obama has now taken the lead in the Iowa caucus market:

Obama 49.9
Clinton 47.0
Edwards 11.0
Gore 2.0
Richardson 1.0

Must be low volume. If you short them all, you come up a decent amount ahead.

The problem here is that volume is light and the gap between the ask and bid is MASSIVE.

To buy them all, you'd have to drop significantly over the 100 points;
To sell them all, you'd have to settle for a bit under 100.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Romney may have peaked.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Damnit, I knew I should have bought more than just a few dollars worth of Huckabee.
ASK: 10.2  BID: 11.8

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

People think Ron Paul has a 3.5% chance of being President.  Tee hee.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Glad I sold half of my Romney yesterday immediately after the debate.

Still holding on to all 20 shares of Huckabee, and considering buying even more.  He's got some solid upside to him still.  (Told you, BRTD.)

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Huckabee is surging today, up to 16.2/16.3.  That's up nearly 20%.