Romney Looks Like the Next Pres

Not really.

 

That probably translates into a doubling of AK the Shill's posting from the current 8.50 posts per day to 17...

 

From the troll who trolls the entire forum calling everyone a shill .Please keep your trolling out of this thread

 

Intrade has Obama down to 54, this was the poll you "deemed most accurate" earlier in this thread AK.....He has now lost 6 points in a month.

I still stand by what i said before about intrade not mattering much at this point, I only wanted to bring this up to point out that Obama is sub 55, which i guaranteed he would get to at some point to those wanting to go long his reelection at 60+ earlier on this thread.....

Whats Ironic about this election at this point is that after four years of Obama blaming everyone else for everything that goes wrong, the events that could potentially sink him in this election are are all legitimately outside of his control.

 

Expected this .In 08 from may to election day McCain was in the lead for about 3 weeks

In 04 from May to election day Bush was around 50 for a month

From the past 2 elections I'm expecting Romney to tie or pull ahead a total of 3-4 weeks with Obama staying ahead 5 out of the 6 months prior to election day.When Romney pulls ahead of Obama more then 30 days then I will be worried

So far Obama has been ahead a month and its currently 54-41.The current drop is due to overreactions to the recent economic numbers imo

 

Pretty disingenous on your part to now play it off as if you knew that Intrade is a fluid market, that is not very accurate this far out, when we were telling you that before and you were holding it up as the be all end all, when polls were trending against Obama in this very thread, and you told me it would be almost impossible to manipulate.....

btw I stand by what i said earlier in this thread, which you vehemently opposed which is that Intrade is not all that accurate this far out, and it is easily manipulated, its only traded 356 shares today, so anyone with a credit card could drive it down/up if they want to..... looking at the book, for 10k you could push obama to 50 right now.

 

Intrade is the most accurate market,it is accurate this far out.I judge intrade by who was accurate the most from the start of the general election to election day.I also previously said I expected Obama to hit 55 or 50.While other polls have had Romney ahead,intrade never has so far.While intrade may have Romney ahead for a short time if they have obama ahead 5 out of the 6 months prior to the election and obama wins that makes them the most accurate

Right now Obama is doing like he did in 08 and Bush did in 04 winning the entire month of May on intrade

 

You're right it can be manipulated up to a certain point if you're willing to throw away money to say Obama has went down on Intrade.



http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?postid=2129555



CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS – POLITICS & ELECTIONS
Updated Oct. 17, 2008 – 12:20 p.m.


Trader Drove Up Price of McCain ‘Stock’ in Online Market





By Josh Rogin, CQ Staff

An internal investigation by the popular online market Intrade has revealed that a single investor’s purchases prompted “unusual” price swings that significantly boosted the prediction that Sen. John McCain will become president.

Over the past several weeks, the investor has pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars into one of Intrade’s predictive markets for the presidential election, the company said, resulting in repeated monetary losses through a strategy that belies any financial motive.

“The trading that caused the unusual price movements and discrepancies was principally due to a single ‘institutional’ member on Intrade,” said the company’s chief executive, John Delaney, in a statement released Thursday. “We have been in contact with the firm on a number of occasions. I have spoken to those involved personally.”

After an extensive investigation into the suspicious trading patterns, Intrade found no wrongdoing or violation of its exchange rules, the company said.

Citing privacy policies, Delaney would not elaborate on who the investor was or whether or not that investor was affiliated in any way with a political campaign.

According to Delaney, this investor, who boosted the McCain prediction significantly over the market value and above the levels of competing predictive-market Web sites, was using the Intrade market to protect other positions and hedge other investments.

Pundits and politicians have used Intrade to track the fortunes of the two presidential candidates. Through the site, begun in 1999 and incorporated in Ireland, traders buy and sell “contracts” that function as stocks, allowing investors to gamble on the outcomes of political, cultural, or even geological events such as the weather.

The company claims and experts confirm that the Intrade market is generally more accurate in predicting outcomes of major events than other leading indicators, such as polls.

But the relatively small scale of the market and its lack of outside regulation leave the system vulnerable to activity from well-monied investors who either have inside information or seek to manipulate the market for political purposes.

Justin Wolfers, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, said the trades in Intrade’s McCain-Obama market do not follow any logical investment strategy.

“Who knows who’s doing it, it’s obviously someone who wants good news for McCain,” said Wolfers, who has been following the situation closely.
Ripple Effects

Intrade users first noticed something amiss when a series of large purchases running counter to market predictions sparked volatility in the prices of John McCain and Barack Obama contracts.

Trader Drove Up Price of McCain ‘Stock’ in Online Market

The investor under scrutiny purchased large blocks of McCain futures at once, artificially boosting their price and making the market seem to indicate that McCain had a greater chance of winning the presidential election. At other times, according to Intrade, the investor sold blocks of Obama futures — artificially lowering the market’s prediction about Obama’s success.

According to Intrade bulletin boards and market histories, soon after the mystery investor would act, smaller investors would sweep in to take advantage of what they saw as a price discrepancy — quickly returning the Obama and McCain futures prices back to their regular market value.

This resulted in huge losses for the investor, which users dubbed the “rogue trader,” and what amounted to effortless profits for the small investors who followed the patterns to take maximum advantage.

There were several signs that the “rogue trader” was not an honest investor simply seeking profit or a McCain enthusiast who just believed that McCain was destined to win the election.

For example, he only bought and sold contracts named specifically after McCain and Obama, while ignoring contracts that predicted a Republican or Democratic presidential win, even thought both sets of contracts are predicting the exact same event outcomes.

Some political news sites, such as realclearpolitics.org, prominently display Intrade’s McCain contract value but not the corresponding value for a Republican presidential win, suggesting again that the rogue trader was trying to influence perceptions.

Also, the rogue trader did not invest similar amounts of money in competing predictive market Web sites betting on John McCain , such as the Iowa Electronic Markets or Betfair. Therefore, he was paying thousands of dollars more than necessary to purchase McCain contracts on Intrade, where the price of betting on McCain was much higher, due largely to his efforts.

On Sept. 24, for example, Obama contracts were trading on Intrade at a price that predicts a 52 percent chance of an Obama victory. At the same time, Betfair and IEM contracts equated to about a 62 percent chance of an Obama victory, the political site fivethirtyeight.com reported.

Lastly, the rogue trader would often buy up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of contracts in the middle of the night, when activity was at its lowest, and in large bursts, Intrade records show.

In a three-day period from Sept. 30 through Oct. 2, four separate flurries of buying drove up the price of the McCain contracts from 3 to 5 points each, although the numbers settled when the market compensated.

“These movements over McCain largely occurred at time when there was no way that any useful information came out that was pro-McCain,” Wolfers said. “A profit-motivated guy wants to buy his stock in a way that would minimize his impact on the price, a manipulator wants to maximize it.”

There is a long history of candidates trying to manipulate predictive markets over the last century, Wolfers said. New York’s one-time Democratic political machine Tammany Hall, for example, used to have a war chest for that very purpose.
Rogue Tactics

Trader Drove Up Price of McCain ‘Stock’ in Online Market

According to Intrade, the company contacted the investor and used public and private data held by the company as part of its investigation. That included an analysis of the trades made by the investor, and also tracking back Internet addresses, physical addresses and other information to make sure the investor was not a bad actor.

Intrade released details about thee investigation in response to questions submitted by Congressional Quarterly.

Some Intrade users speculated that the rogue trader may just be a true believer in McCain’s chances for victory, no matter what the market, polls or pundits are saying. Indeed, bucking the conventional wisdom is often a profit-making strategy on the site.

For example, during the first two presidential debates, the trader bet thousands of dollars on a McCain electoral victory at the same moment that instant polls were suggesting that Obama would win.

But again, from an investment standpoint, the tactics used by the trader suggest a different motive.

“That’s equivalent to buy a company’s stock just as negative earning reports come out, said David Rothschild, a researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the Wharton School, “It is a bad investment, but may make some observers think that Mr. McCain won the debate, which, again would be the goal of market manipulation.”

Also, the trader paid a premium of 10 percent to 20 percent on every dollar traded by not placing similar bets on other Web sites, according to Rothschild’s calculations.

Overall, if the trader’s motive was to influence the Intrade market, he was remarkably successful. He singlehandedly kept the probability of Obama winning the election on Intrade about 10 percent lower than Betfair and IEM for more than a month.

It’s unknown how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars the trader lost in process.

“If the investor did this as investment, not to manipulate Intrade, he is one of the most foolish investors in the world,” Rothschild said.

Drew Armstrong contributed to this story.

First posted Oct. 17, 2008 11:44 a.m.

 

Jesus...... What I said earlier on this thread, when you were adamantly denying that it was incredibly easy to manipulate the intrade market, is that 1 person could be holding OBAMA at 61, very easily, especially if they want to place a large bet. Just like how right now 1 person could be holding Obama at 55%

What I said in the previous post on this thread, was merely an example of how easy it would be to move it either way.....

A person wouldnt even have to be intentionally trying to move the market, If someone wanted to get some size off at this point on Intrade they would have to hold a line 2-4% above or below market, just to build a position.

 

I previously stated I knew it could be manipulated up to the point it that could be arb'ed with other markets for free money



http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=240772&perpage=6&pagenumber=131