Do you know what Mick, I've never really paid attention to intrade.

But I might as well make some money out of this obsession. Let's put TNR to the test and see if it's as good an indicator as it claims.

I think I'll open an account. There's some savage, savage value on the US falling into a recession at the moment. Very over sold, with a juicy belt hold at the bottom. Only a 21% chance of an American recession? Are you joking! Go long on that.

Big time.

And I'd short McCain as well.

He represents real value at 37%.Although, they'll push it lower initially, during Obama's convention honeymoon, collecting inventory, only to push it, higher. If it gets above 37%, you could get close to 40% during Mc Cain's convention cycle but 37%, today, still represents his pivot.  

Obama's had the kitchen sink thrown at him. His cupboard is empty. There won't be a shock Wright moment close to election day. People have become accustomed to him being human. Clinton sapped the poison, and crucially, he hasn't had to pander to a lobby group, or make radical statements. He managed to stay dead centre.

He's a shoe-in.

2 days before Delta came out of bankruptcy, you could still sell their stock for $0.50/share, even though there was essentially no chance that stockholders would get a dime out of the settlement.  There are, it seems, more than one born every minute.

The 7.4% against McCain for the nomination is not significant.  It's the natural stickiness of the InTrade politics market:

1.  There are always people buying against presumptive winners on the chance of a heart attack or massive revelation

2.  There's not enough money in the system to make it work trying to leverage against the 5 points between 95 and 100

3.  It's an imperfect market - not enough participants and money to close the small gaps

You don't ever see values much closer to 100 on well-traded candidates, so McCain isn't special, e.g. Democrat keeping the House is only at 90%, despite it being a near-certainty.

Dead centre? I.P., do you reside in Britain, or Canada, or are you a transplant?  Going long on the recession option is a good thing. As far as an October Surprise, don't rule it out. Tony R. is still hovering in the background and God knows what else. The O man is so not vetted. Mac has potential in this department too. Dayo's excellent post the other day reminded us of that. He is a national figure whose background in Arizona has been little probed.

Thanks for the tip japeer. Much appreicated. Are you saying the market is so inliquade that the gaps make it unviable? The spread does seem big.

Just so we're clear on the race. The odds of a massive revelation for Obama vs a McCain revelation are pretty good for the Dems. Especially after this Dem dogfight and Republican coronation. Would you agree?

Also, we've had 8 years of Republican rule; a deeply unpopular war; an economic shit storm that isn't over yet, despite the Fed goosing the market (the Dollar will linger at 1.500 Euro before collapsing, thereby increasing commodity values and inflation fears, all this after the Fed's played it's hand . I can see into the future.); people are scared sh*tless and even if the Fed manages to engineer another bubble, they won't trust a Republican admin with regualting the insanely complex finanacial markets.

What are the polls again on "wanting change"? Fairly substantial, I would have thought. What better oscillator coudl you ask for?

I can tell you this. That recession price will rise to 30-35 before the years out, and Mc Cain is more likely to blow up on the campaign; is more likely to suffer from a split coalition; is more likely to have health problems; is more likely to come across as divisive; is more likely to pander to his base...

It goes on and on.

Short Mc Cain and take 5-10 points on that recession talk.

LR, what more vetting can this guy get? Every person he has ever met, every place he has ever lived has been scrutinized to no end. What October surprise can there be? The only one left could be sexual and lord knows Bill is far more likely to provide an October surprise than Obama is. I am just no sure why people believe that in this day of instantaneous blogging that any huge secret about him does remain. It is guilt by insinuation "Oh but he must be guilty of something, everyone is" and is actually kind of sad.  Now people don't even have to be guilty of something, they only need to be potentially guilty of something. Ie. every is potentially guilty of something, therefore no one can be President.

Blackton: Obama has been on the national stage for a few short years. There is to be vetted whatever there is to be vetted. Maybe there is nothing else, maybe not. Stay tuned.

What I find so interesting in these charts (and the nearly identical ones available at Iowa Electronic Markets) is that the market's wisdom selected Obama at about the time of the February 12th Potomac Primary and has wavered very little since.

IP says "Are you saying the market is so inliquade that the gaps make it unviable?"

I'm not saying that any aspect of the market unviable (unless you're referring to the gaps).  Rather that there are few enough participants and little enough money that changes in the market are not immediately reflected in the price point of a given contract, since it takes time for individual people to hear news, go to the website and make trades.  The reason stock markets work so smoothly is that there are effectively unlimited numbers of people trading at a given time, so that changes propagate instantaneously.  More relevantly, if there are differences between the price of a given stock and where you think it should be, you could borrow unlimited money to bet on that adjustment.

On InTrade, right now the combined odds for Clinton, Obama and McCain to be elected is 99.3.  I don't think even a strong contrarian would claim that there is even a 0.7% chance that someone else will become president.  But you would have to mobilize anumber of bets to leverage that.

I also suspect that the nature of the "contracts" on InTrade affects the stickiness issue too, but I'm not sure how.