Charting Bush (Continued)

I asked for it and they gave it to me. You have to love the commenters. Some of these people are way smarter than I am.

presidential_futures_marketHere is the chart of the Presidential race futures market at the Univ of Iowa Business School.

It's a tight race right now.

It will be interesting to see how this chart looks after the Republican convention.

Comments

Can you honestly say the "market" has a composition that approximates the US voters? This certainly doesn't account for all the little old ladies, servicepeople overseas, the undereducated, and the People magazine readers that vote in the election.

What would be interesting is seeing these results compared to some market results of futures that are indicators of the composition of the market makers themselves. Some big divide issues like gay marriage, iraq, abortion rights, fiscal responsibility, environmental policies, etc.

David - the market is extremely prescient in handicapping races like these. The composition of the participants, as long as they significant enough in number to provide liquidity, is not relevant. Look at sportsbook or horse racing: the market is eerily spot-on most of the time. The little old ladies and People magazine readers you are referring to are built into the market's expectations already, as that information is public.

Yeah, the market is extraordinarily prescient. That prediction about eToys it made back in 1999 certainly worked out real well. (not to mention what it was saying about Kerry in January). Warren Buffett doesn't have $36 billion dollars because the market priced companies better than he did. Like democracies, to function ideally, markets would require ideal people. And like democracies, markets eventually self-correct.

http://milwaukeechapter.com/wwwboard/messages/24772.html chokeddiscoverthud

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