Pundits Wrong Again, What a Surprise...

Well, last night went just about as well as one could have hoped for. Carly Fiorina won her primary as expected and Senator Blanche Lincoln was able to pull off an upset against her primary opponent Bill Halter. It's funny how a lot of political pundits just straight up got it wrong last night and made the price on Intrade very, very, profitable for those who can handicap political races correctly. Because of last night the founder of the DailyKos is now considering dropping Research2000 as their commissioned pollster. Good for him.

An interesting aspect about last night was that the AP misreported the election numbers for about 5-10 Minutes last night sending the Arkansas Democratic Primary market into a frenzy. The price for Lincoln went from 90% to 20% in minutes. It cost a me a little money in the sense that I didn't make as much as I could have because I exited out of my positions when I was hoping to hold on to them until expiration. However, I was making trades throughout the night so I was able to make what I had originally set out with my original bet but I could have made double had AP not made that screw up or if I hadn't noticed. Below is a screenshot of the time and sales chart and you can see the dip caused solely by AP's reporting of the numbers.

It has been a lot of fun trading these last couple of weeks but unfortunately I am probably going to be out of commission for a while. I have to withdraw most of my funds and probably will not be able to make any of the bets I usually make. I'll try to keep posting box office predictions and will post on any good deals I may find but the regularity of my posts will not be as frequent as they were before I went on vacation. I'll try to be back trading as much as possible before November. For liquidity purposes I am selling some Rand Paul contracts at 65% and some Spotify contracts at 62.5%. I would keep holding on to both until expiration but having some little margin at this point would be preferred. If anyone would be willing to take them off my hands, it would be most appreciated.

Tuesday Primaries, Polling, & Bets

Tonight, a whole bunch of primaries from around the country will be decided. In Arkansas, there will be a run off between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov Bill Halter. Lincoln was able to beat Halter by a couple of points in the regular primary but was not able to avoid a run off which might prove deadly to her political career. There has been very little polling in this race and the only poll we have to rely on is Research2000. They currently have Halter in the lead by +4 points but considering how unreliable RS2000/DailyKos polling has become recently, I wouldn't be willing to place a wager on Halter who is the current favorite. In fact, I have placed a small speculative wager on Lincoln at 20.5%. I just wish we had better polling. RS2000/DailyKos had Lincoln 9+ points ahead right before the primary. I'm hoping this time, they are way off again but in my favor.

In California, there are two gubernatorial primaries and a Republican senate primary. A couple of weeks back I was able to spot a SurveyUSA poll which had Carly Fiorina in the lead by 23% points opposite of what RS2000/DailyKos had found literally less then a week before. They polled the race 4 days before SurveyUSA and had Campbell in the lead by 15%. I decided to trust SurveyUSA and I shorted Campbell at the time for 50%. The lesson I learned then and what some traders might learn tonight is that there are pollsters you can trust and pollsters you can't. Some pollsters can even go from trustworthy to untrustworthy, such as Research2000. They might by right tonight, but I'm not betting on it.

Weekend Box Office Predictions and Bets (6/4/10)-(6/6/10)

In a summer that has continued to underwhelm, this weekend looks like it will continue to do the same. Two movies opening this weekend have a significant chance of breaking +$20 Million. Killers and Get Him to the Greek. Splice might be able to break +$10 Million but Marmaduke seems destined to bomb spectacularly. The only bet I have made this weekend is on Marmaduke not passing $12.5 Million. I have shorted it on Intrade at a price of 50%. Last week I made the mistake of not going with the model and adjusting MacGruber’s estimate upward. The model has constantly had trouble predicting movies under $15 Million so most of my predictions in that range are always kind of iffy. Where Marmaduke ends up at the end of the weekend is honestly a mystery to me. $4.2 Million seems really, really, low but I don’t think it will pass $10 Million. I already put a sizeable bet and there is still some contracts up for the taking at $12.5 Million. If my bankroll was bigger I’d take them, but I don’t like to put so much riding on one movie. Movies are in general extremely unpredictable.

Movie	Opening Weekend Prediction
Killers	$19.34 Million
Get Him to the Greek	$18.47 Million
Splice	$10.09 Million
Marmaduke	$4.20 Million