November 02, 2004

More Market News

Posted by Brian

This one might be rational. As of this instant (4.16 et) Tradesports has Kerry slightly ahead of Bush. I think he should be much further ahead - at this stage he only needs one of Ohio and Florida to win and he’s a slight favourite in both. But it’s another data point.

UPDATE: As Daniel says in comments, both Tradesports and IEM can’t handle the server load today. Post any updated numbers from either site in comments here - if you can get through to those sites.

Posted on November 2, 2004 09:18 PM UTC
Comments

I’ve been shoving up updates as comments to my post. About half an hour after the exit poll data went up on Slate, the IEM bid Kerry up to 58% and then collapsed under the load. Tradesports is also not responding particularly well, so if anyone gets quotes, please post them up here.

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 09:36 PM

It seems Kerry has been bid up at 60% (at 4:35 pm eastern). Overreaction to early exit poll leaks?

Posted by Detached Observer · November 2, 2004 09:37 PM

Can someone post Slate’s numbers if you have them? Their site is not responding.

Posted by Bernard Yomtov · November 2, 2004 09:42 PM

From Slate - of course CT might not do any better if the load picks up.

Florida
Kerry 50
Bush 49

Ohio
Kerry 50
Bush 49

Pennsylvania
Kerry 54
Bush 45

Wisconsin
Kerry 51
Bush 46

Michigan
Kerry 51
Bush 47

Minnesota
Kerry 58
Bush 40

Nevada
Kerry 48
Bush 50

New Mexico
Kerry 50
Bush 48

North Carolina
Kerry 49
Bush 51

Colorado
Kerry 46
Bush 53

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 09:46 PM

Here’s the 4.45et Iowa numbers - last trade only

Dem_G52 - 0.288
Dem_L52 - 0.395
Rep_L52 - 0.219
Rep_G52 - 0.100

And Tradesports (4.51) has Kerry 62 Bush 37.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 09:51 PM

Thank you, Brian.

Posted by Bernard Yomtov · November 2, 2004 09:55 PM

You can’t reload Tradesports without the market moving. At 4.57 it’s Kerry 67 Bush 34.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 09:58 PM

Watching these markets is a blast. It’s almost as much fun as watching the Indian betting markets in a particularly close cricket game. By the way, those would make a great test case for the wisdom of crowds theses.

Tradesports seems to have settled down to 67-33 for a bit.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 10:05 PM

Fair do’s to the gambling public; they’re putting their cock on the block and calling it early doors. I have Kerr at 35+22 and Bush at 24+19 as of 1600 CST, with Tradesports not responding at all, not even the plain HTML “emergency” page.

btw, if you don’t like phrases like “cock on the block” and “early doors”, stay away from me as this mockney market-maker’s patois is only going to get worse as I get more drunk!

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:06 PM

And here’s the 5.00

Dem_G52 - 0.450
Dem_L52 - 0.394
Rep_L52 - 0.210
Rep_G52 - 0.111

I never thought I’d say this about Iowa, but these numbers seem too Democratic. Dem_G52 seems overpriced to me. We’ll soon see though.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 10:08 PM

It’s certainly addicting.

IEM - I just got the following returned.

Symbol Bid Ask
DEM04_G52 0.221 0.950
DEM04_L52 0.387 0.390
REP04_L52 0.201 0.262
REP04_G52 0.075 0.110

Yes, a 70 cent spread on the first item.

Posted by Jason · November 2, 2004 10:11 PM

ach, got a couple of bites. IEM is quoting Kerry @ 38+22 on the bid; there are basically no offers for K>52 so the midprices are meaningless. IEM Bush is 23+9 mid as of 1606 CST (I’m quoting these prices as 52, ie Kerry is 38 to win 52% of the popular vote).

Tradesports is very shaky indeed, but I’m seeing Kerry at 61.5 and Bush at 36.5 midprices. The spread on Bush-Ohio has exploded; he’s currently quoted 44-51!

If Alex were here, I think he’d note that the limit order book isn’t really working when there’s big volume to go through (Tradesports are claiming to have done $16m of election contracts today!). There might be a business opportunity if any reader wants to set up a competing operation to Tradesports; I’m guessing that a lot of bettors would regard it as a valuable service if one of these “exchanges” was prepared to act as market maker and take some principal risk to ensure an orderly two-way market.

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:13 PM

Guys, it’s going to be a lot easier to tell what’s going on if we do what Brian’s doing and standardise on giving the time of the quotes in EST.

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:18 PM

Ah, the 4.15ct (i.e. 5.15et) numbers from IEM make more sense.

Dem_G52 - 0.299
Dem_L52 - 0.391
Rep_L52 - 0.186
Rep_G52 - 0.033

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 10:19 PM

god we need an IRC channel for this … it’s really addictive. I think that Sky Interactive television might have live quotes; I’ll turn it on and see.

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:20 PM

Tradesports is holding the line at 61 Kerry and 36 Bush (1720 ET); I suspect that the server is getting so badly thrashed that no trades are going through.

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:25 PM

Iowa appears to be responding if anything better than we are, so maybe we don’t need to do this for them any more.

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:28 PM

Yeah, we really need to not be using the CT comments boards.

I think Tradesports has settled down, but it’s hard to tell because the site has basically crashed. As has most of the internet.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 10:30 PM

4.30ct (5.30et) Iowa numbers

Symbol Bid Ask Last Low High Average
DEM04_G52 0.268 0.297 0.298 0.130 0.950 0.220
DEM04_L52 0.372 0.414 0.414 0.301 0.423 0.346
REP04_L52 0.201 0.234 0.233 0.183 0.398 0.305
REP04_G52 0.059 0.098 0.057 0.033 0.163 0.108

Sorry for the lousy formatting - we can’t do tables in the CT comments.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 10:32 PM

TS back up to 67 Kerry. They’re responding slowly but reliably now.

FUCK! Bush-Ohio is 38-39? That was like mid 50s when I left work today. The gambling community has spoken and no mistake.

Christ, this is going to be disappointing when the bastard finally wins on a lawsuit. Remember, the market is a pain maximisation machine …

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:38 PM

tradesports showing:
bush bid 25 ask 28.5 last 28.5 change -24.5
kerry bid 72 ask 72.8 last 72.8 +25.8

Posted by anand · November 2, 2004 10:40 PM

4pm exit polls from Slate

The 4 p.m. ET exit-poll numbers:

Florida
Kerry 52
Bush 48

Ohio
Kerry 52
Bush 47

Michigan
Kerry 51
Bush 48

Pennsylvania
Kerry 58
Bush 42

Iowa
Kerry 50
Bush 48

Wisconsin
Kerry 53
Bush 47

Minnesota
Kerry 57
Bush 42

New Hampshire
Kerry 58
Bush 41

Maine
Kerry 55
Bush 44

New Mexico
Kerry 49
Bush 49

Nevada
Kerry 48
Bush 49

Colorado
Kerry 49
Bush 50

Arkansas
Kerry 45
Bush 54

Posted by Henry · November 2, 2004 10:42 PM

I think they’re both OK. Maybe put another update telling people, so we have a fighting chance of staying up ourselves?

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 10:42 PM

Henry, where did you get those #s from? I’m seeing Florida and Ohio still 50-49 at Slate.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · November 2, 2004 10:58 PM

“Fair do’s to the gambling public; they’re putting their cock on the block and calling it early doors.”

So D-squared, who (quite reasonably) holds that an aggregate production function is an indefensible concept, contends that the gambling public has an aggregate cock.

I look forward to a post on that topic.

Posted by kevin donoghue · November 2, 2004 11:04 PM

Looking at the movements today, I’d say the markets have the wisdom of a crowd that gets its info from Slate.

A big win for the semi-strong version of the EMH, and an equally big loss for the strong version.

Posted by John Quiggin · November 2, 2004 11:05 PM

I wonder: if Kerry does win, will the conservative blame-it-on-the-media crowd try to argue that Bush lost because Slate posted the exit poll numbers, creating confidence for a Kerry victory?

Posted by alex · November 2, 2004 11:14 PM

Further to John’s point, if you look at the comments to my post on the IEM, you’ll see that a crowd which religiously read everything posted on CT could have made big profits1; there was a fairly material delay between the exit polls going up on Slate and the prices moving.

[1] in percentage terms anyway; I suspect that liquidity on those contracts were crap.

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 11:19 PM

Bush now down to 17+5 mid price on IEM. Surely to God he’s got more of a chance than that? Tradesports has him at 29 bid. For what it’s worth, Newsnight just suggested that Kerry’s lead in the early exit polls was attenuating as more information came in …

Posted by dsquared · November 2, 2004 11:35 PM

It’s rather a shame that there is no “Comment of the Week” award at CT, because Kevin D. would certainly have won it.

Posted by dsquared · November 3, 2004 01:17 AM

As of 2am EST, it seems that the market has given it to Bush:

Symbol Bid Ask Last Low High Average
DEM04_G52 0.000 0.001 0.001 0.000 0.016 0.005
DEM04_L52 0.014 0.020 0.015 0.001 0.028 0.008
REP04_L52 0.851 0.899 0.898 0.787 0.944 0.865
REP04_G52 0.070 0.090 0.071 0.050 0.169 0.112

Posted by Matt Krause · November 3, 2004 07:01 AM
Followups

→ Good news so far.
Excerpt: Early exit polls are showing Kerry ahead in nearly all the swing states - I don't know how much weight to place on this. Slate is releasing exit polls as they come to hand, and is rather hard to reach...Read more at John Quiggin

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.