Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Romney really does have something to sing about

A modest little win for me today with Mitt Romney winning the Florida primary.
The man now does have something to sing about
.

A Mitt Romney Anomaly

For all the caucuses and primaries to be held over the next month, Mitt Romney is an odds on favourite. He is very short as well in the market to be the eventual Republican candidate. Yet the opinion pollsters in their surveys of Republican voters have him as the second choice behind Newt Gingrich.
(The polls figures are taken from the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls.)
The lack of enthusiasm for Romney makes me hesitate about taking the short prices on offer in these upcoming events although I have backed him to win today's (Tuesday's) Florida primary.



Interest rate cut odds shortening

So far so good on the interest rate front. I recommended taking the $1.70 about a 0.25 point fall in the official rate when the Reserve Bank Board next meets and it is in to $1.37 tonight.
I'm happy to let it ride all the way to Tuesday's meeting.
The interest rate decision indicator which converts the market to 100 per cent looks like this:

Trouble at London Labour's mill

A few tensions apparently within those working on the Ken Livingstone campaign to become London's Mayor. It all reads like pretty petty stuff to me but it's been enough to start pushing the Labour candidate's price out again. Out to $2.66 on Betfair after coming in to $240 after opinion polls put him in front.
Having missed the $3.85 (see my lament here) I'll keep waiting for a while longer yet.

Friday, January 27, 2012

A volatile Florida Republican primary market

Well it looks like Mitt Romney will start a short priced favourite to win the Republican Florida primary but it has been an up and down ride to get there.
The fluctuations on Intrade over the last month

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Waiting too long to bet on London's mayoral race?

I pondered back on 9 January having a bet on the Labour candidate to defeat the Tory Lord Mayor of London. Labour's Ken Livingstone back then was a $3.85 chance on Betfair. Tonight he is in to $2.40.
The reason is a couple of opinion polls showing Livingstone is now leading the incumbent Boris Johnson.

Having missed the price, even though my logic has so far proved correct, I'll keep waiting.

Coming down to earth

Well there went the 100% record! Taking Mitt Romney as a 70% chance to win in South Carolina turned out to be the wrong way to go. Clearly I moved too soon. By the time the voting started Newt Gingrich, the clear winner, was also the clear favourite as the Crikey Election Indicator showed:.
I've taken the wrong price about Florida too (Romney as an 82% chance). At the moment he is rated at 42% with Gingrich the new favourite.

We will see.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Santorum won January 3 Iowa presidential caucuses | Reuters

From Reuters:
Former Senator Rick Santorum won the January 3 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses by a razor-thin margin of 34 votes, according to certified results released on Thursday by the Iowa Republican Party.Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had been declared the winner on the night of the caucuses, but now falls to second place.

Luckily I got paid on the early count!

'via Blog this'

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

World Bank's interest rate signal

I know it's just another forecast and economic forecasts invariably are wrong. But the World's Banks warning today of a world in danger of another recession is sure to be factored in by the Australian Reserve Bank board when it meets on the first Tuesday of next month. Like most of the other evidence the World bank is pointing towards countries needing to stimulate activity rather than curb it. Hence my modest little punt on an interest rate decline of 0.15 percentage points.
Details of all current wagers are here.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Romney Has 23-Point GOP Lead Nationally

From Gallup: Mitt Romney has climbed to a commanding 23-point lead over his nearest competitor among Republican registered voters nationally, based on interviewing conducted Jan. 11-15. Romney has 37% of the support of Republicans nationwide, while Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich each have 14%, and Ron Paul has 12%. History suggests that Romney is now the probable favorite to win the Republican nomination.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Romney opens 21-point lead in South Carolina: Reuters/Ipsos poll | Reuters

Further evidence that the race for the Republican nomination is close to being over.

From Reuters: "Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has opened a wide lead over his rivals in the South Carolina primary election race, trouncing Newt Gingrich and gaining momentum in his march toward the party's nomination, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, could all but quash his rivals' presidential aspirations with a victory in South Carolina on January 21 after winning the first state-by-state nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire."

'via Blog this'

Friday, January 13, 2012

So far so good in the political profit stakes

This little experiment of putting my political judgment on the record has panned out alright so far.
On concluded events the suggested outlay of $390 has resulted in winnings of $197.30 since starting in mid-November.
Not that such a good record is likely to continue. It looks like there are some losses on the way.
The current portfolio can be found here.

Betting against President Sarkozy in France

Some strong showings in recent opinion polls by the French far-right National Front suggest that Nicolas Sarkozy is far from a certainty to make the final run-off election for the French presidency.
The Ifop-Fiducial survey taken between 9 and 12 January showed the Front's Marie Le Pen within two percentage points of Sarkozy with both behind the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande in the predicted first round of voting.
In its measurement of a likely second round contest between Sarkkozy and Hollande the lead for the Socialist challenger over the incumbent was a considerable 14 points.
Given that Sarkozy has to pull off the double of coming either first or second in the first round of polling and then win the run-off laying him at the 35.5% assessment on Intrade looks good value to me and I'll be taking some of it.


Monday, January 9, 2012

Tempted to bet on a race for London's mayor

London's mayoral election has me interested. I can't help thinking that the defeat of Labour's Ken Livingstone back in 2008 by the Conservative candidate Boris Johnson owed a great deal to the unpopularity of the British Labour Government. With Tony Blair and George Brown now consigned to the lucrative public speaking sidelines and Prime Minister David Cameron suffering from dismal economic prospects I would expect things to be different this time.
I admit that so far there is no evidence from the opinion polls that there will be a Livingstone revival. Johnson had a winning margin of nearly six percentage points and the latest polls back in November had him doing slightly better than that. But I did find this piece from The Guardian suggesting that my hunch might prove correct and that Livingstone's price of $3.85 on Betfair is over the odds.
Ken Livingstone has a vision for a capitalist metropolis. And Boris? | Politics | guardian.co.uk:
"It's still early days, of course, and official campaigning has yet to begin. Yet any clear sense of what a second Boris Johnson mayoral term would seek to achieve remains striking by its absence. Ken Livingstone's camp might claim that this reflects the success of its Fare Deal campaign in putting the Boris operation on the back foot, but the dearth of all but the faintest outlines of policy proposals for four more years of Tory mayoralty, let alone a driving central theme, raises once again the question of what Mayor Johnson is actually for."
No investment from me as yet but I am watching closely for further evidence.

'via Blog this'

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Time Is Running Out To Knock Romney Down

I hope they are right!

 It's All Politics : NPR:
"Once more, the great media consensus was confounded. Saturday night's debate at St. Anselm's College in Manchester, N.H., produced another battle among half a dozen presidential contenders, much like a dozen before it. Front-runner Mitt Romney was neither knocked out nor even knocked down. He was scarcely even knocked around.

Once again, the evening ended with the bruises pretty equally distributed among the contestants. And with the New Hampshire primary bearing down on Tuesday, virtually no time remains for Romney's rivals to bring him down."

'via Blog this'

Friday, January 6, 2012

Betting Romney keeps rolling onwards

I'm keeping on the Mitt Romney bandwagon as the evidence mounts that the Newt Gingrich bubble has well and truly burst and the rather extremist religious views of Rick Santorum begin getting exposed.
Intrade had him as a 70% chance and I took the little that was available ($35 worth).
Then had a modest $41 investment on Romney to win in Florida at 82%.

National GOP Leader Post-New Hampshire Is Good Bet to Win

From Gallup:
National GOP Leader Post-New Hampshire Is Good Bet to Win: " In recent Republican presidential nomination campaigns, the results of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary have often made Republicans nationwide re-evaluate their preferences for the nominee, with the most change occurring in 1980 and 2008. Since 1976 -- the first year in the modern nominating era in which there was a competitive Republican contest -- the leader after New Hampshire has ultimately won the nomination."

'via Blog this'

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Santorum: States Should Have The Right To Outlaw Birth Control | ThinkProgress

Surely with views like this the man could not really be any major party's selection!


Rick Santorum reiterated his belief that states should have the right to outlaw contraception during an interview with ABC News yesterday, saying, “The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.”
antorum has long opposed the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling “that invalidated a Connecticut law banning contraception” and has also pledged to completely defund federal funding for contraception if elected president. As he told CaffeinatedThoughts.com editor Shane Vander Hart in October, “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” the former Pennsylvania senator explained. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

rom - Santorum: States Should Have The Right To Outlaw Birth Control | ThinkProgress:

'via Blog this'

US elections 2012: Mitt Romney braced for tough fight as Right prepares to unite behind Santorum - Telegraph

US elections 2012: Mitt Romney braced for tough fight as Right prepares to unite behind Santorum - Telegraph:

'via Blog this'

Perhaps I will get a bit of value from my Santorum at $27!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Sticking with Mitt

For Crikey's The Stump blog I produce a series of election indicators based on the major prediction markets. As Iowa Republicans gather to give their verdict on Republican presidential candidates the  Indicator illustrates the uncertainty about the likely outcome. While Mitt Romney is favoured with a 43.1% probability,  Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are also rated as significant chances.
There's always a temptation to take a modest profit on the eve of an event but this time I'm letting my investment on Romney ride in the hope that he will finish first as Pau, Santorum and Gingrich divide the anti-Romney forces.