And Who Do The Other 17% Think Will Win?

0501natsubwebpolla

My other thought when looking at this chart was "if these were two stocks, what would people be doing with them?"

#Politics

Comments (Archived):

  1. Jesse Chenard

    I like both the candidates but if they were stocks I would be shorting Obama big time at this point. If Clinton does well in Indiana and shows reasonably in NC I would then start to buy Clinton. Just my layperson stock strategy though. I am sure someone with more financial trading expertise could come up with a much more complex formula.

  2. stavvmc

    I’d say this a buying opportunity for Obama (Nasdaq: HOPE), which is undergoing consolidation, and a good entry point for shorting Hillary (NYSE: BS). The long-term trends suggest that a secular shift is underway to politics 2.0 and away from legacy systems. Hillary isn’t winning — she’s just not getting beaten up as badly when the stakes are do or die.

    1. fredwilson

      I love the tickers in your commentThis is getting reblogged on fredwilson.vc!

    2. andyswan

      In the general election, I’m starting to take a look at McCain (Nasdaq: LAME…… previously NYSE: POW). One also can’t help but wonder what impact the Ralph Nader (NYSE: EGO) campaign will have on HOPE and BS. Personally, I’m still hoping for an IPO from Bloomberg (NASDAQ: RICH).

  3. Mats Myrberg

    It’s basically impossible for Hillary to get enough votes to overcome Obama’s advantage at this point (I think she has to win ~70% of the rest of the votes). That is unless a bunch of superdelegates switch. If that happens I think we will turn off a whole generation of voters that have just only begun to get engaged during this election because it means a bunch of party insiders will decide things. If you think people are cynical now just wait. It will be a sad day in US politics. I am also curious why the press does not cover this basic math fact.

  4. S.t

    Short ’em both to $zeroHRC = BSCBHO = ENE

    1. jedc_mercury

      Great note… and thanks for the links to the charts.

    2. ww

      lol

  5. AnujMathur

    stavvmc and mats have it right — you’ve found a great opportunity where the momentum buyers have made a switch from obama to clinton, creating a short term opportunity in obama. if you look at the fundamentals on the most conservative basis, this argument’s strength becomes very clear.currently, clinton needs ~61% of the remaining delegates to secure nomination, vs. 41% for obama TODAY. however, let’s say that delegates are split evenly between obama and clinton in IN and NC – a very conservative assumption. now clinton needs ~65% of the remaining delegates, whereas obama needs only ~39%. if obama nets more in the two primaries (which he almost certainly will), these percentages will favor obama even moreso.

  6. ErikSchwartz

    She’s been losing superdelegate race by about a 2-1 rate for the last few weeks. She needed to be winning the supers 2-1. I think today’s tally is 5 for Obama, none for Clinton.It’s over.

  7. Griswold

    Sure, you could sleep at night shorting HRC, but there’s a bit too much volatility here right now for my tastes. Rather, I prefer the McCain ETF for now: an inverse fund which goes up 2 for every 1 day HOPE and HRC keep railing against each other… as an added benefit, the fund also tracks McCain backer (and oatmeal maven) Wilford Brimley.

  8. jedc_mercury

    If you ask people what they think, you get poll results like you do above.If you ask people to put money behind what they think, you get what they REALLY think. InTrade has been hosting real-money prediction markets for years, and their results (Obama still around 80% chance of getting the Dem nomination and just about 50% chance of getting the presidency) have literally millions of dollars behind them.So “if these were two stocks, what would people be doing with them?” isn’t the right question… “what are people doing on the ACTUAL markets?” would be a better question.

  9. LukeG

    They ARE publicly traded: “Barack Obama to be Democratic Presidential Nominee in 2008” has been on the front page of Intrade for months now. Right now he’s priced to sell at 74.0 ($7.40 for a $10.00 payout). The site also has historical price charting, which is mildly fascinating on it’s own.Political prediction markets have (apparently) become more accurate at forecasting election results than modern polling methods. Check out a nice Scientific American overview here: http://www.sciam.com/articl….This stuff is pretty fun.

  10. Mike

    looking at them as publicly traded stocks is in my opinion an incorrect analogy, since with the elections, there is an end game. it probably makes sense to use an analogy closer to your heart fred – which company would you invest in, knowing that only one of these companies would actually have an exit in a few months. would you rather invest in the company that’s been hot as of late, but not likely to have an interested buyer, or one that’s floundered a bit as of late because of bad PR unrelated to corporate execution, but likely to get bought?

  11. Farhan Lalji

    Think that Hilary’s rise is due to the Obama’s tribulations not of her own value, she hasn’t released strong numbers, she’s just attacked the other’s position and seen her stock rise. Not sustainable in my opinion and for this reason Short Hilary.

  12. Jeffrey

    The stock analogy isn’t that great. More accurate would be a startup analogy: Hillary no longer has any runway.

  13. JeremiahKane

    The intrade markets still have Al Gore with a 5% chance of winning the nomination…. not 17% but a start.The prediction markets have proven to be better predictors than many polls but they have misses this year as well. Intrade predicted NH and CA for Obama comes to mind. I have found that the markets are better a few days out from a contest but can swing wildly just before and especially the day of a contest as they react to any information (bad exit polls etc.).

    1. jedc_mercury

      The problem with assessing prediction market “misses” is that they have to be “wrong” at times in order to be right. If every contract on InTrade that was priced at $6 (60% probability) won, those contracts were significantly underpriced. 4 in 10 of those 60% favourites need to lose in order for the market to be calibrated.Calibration is a long-term performance test of a market and is the best and most basic way to evaluate market accuracy. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t understand probability particularly well, which makes talking about odd results difficult. More on my website here:http://blog.mercury-rac.com

  14. ceonyc

    If a stock took a 18% tumble for no good reason whatsoever… (What’s changed about Obama? This Rev. Wright garbage? Seriously? Jeez… I hope no one holds me accountable for what the priests in my parish say or do.) then I’d be buying into it, because people will return to their senses.Long Obama. These startup comments are right: She’s running out of room. Maybe if she had more time to try to tarnish his image, promise cheap oil…Good thing for her the Obama campaign doesn’t seem so interested in digging up people from her past. You don’t think there’s some sketchy backwater Arkansas politicians who have made racist comments that they can tie her to?I like the fact that he kinda blew it on the Wright thing and should have cut bait earlier… shows he wasn’t being calculating.. he was making an honest and difficult decision. We need honesty in the White House, not made up bullet dodging in Bosnia.

  15. JeremiahKane

    This is a bit of a double whammy for you Fred.I always though you were great at picking: Early Stage Tech Companies, Bands and Real EstateBad at Picking: Public Company Stocks and Winning Politicians

    1. fredwilson

      I think you are right but I did sense that gwb was going to be the next president well before he ran in 2000

  16. thomasl824

    I be buying Obama & CO here big time considering the baclklog of SEC actions against Clinton & CO. Plus their P&L statements are not good. Plus this audience of buyers has proved to be pretty fickel.

  17. phoneranger

    If you are a trader you should always “go flat into the number” which means close out your positions before Tuesday’s primary. Whatever happens, there will be an enormous reaction on Tuesday night Wednesday morning. H could take two and get a big (IMO shortterm) boost which should be shorted later in the week or O could get 1.5 or 2 and then H goes to zero pronto. Best to go flat into the number and trade the results.

  18. Charlie Crystle

    The thing is, Fred, is there are laws for businesses that prevent them from bashing each other like Hillary did to Obama in PA and elsewhere. What these polls indicate is that if you smear your opponent, some people will believe it. It also shows that before Hillary smears Obama effectively, people liked him better and didn’t like her much at all. Because he has chosen not to smear back (imagine all the things he’s left off the table), the gap closes.Clinton can’t win. She can’t close the deal. So she’s trying to bash her way to something, but it certainly can not–mathematically–be the nomination.

  19. Charlie Crystle

    The thing is, Fred, is there are laws for businesses that prevent them from bashing each other like Hillary did to Obama in PA and elsewhere. What these polls indicate is that if you smear your opponent, some people will believe it. It also shows that before Hillary smears Obama effectively, people liked him better and didn’t like her much at all. Because he has chosen not to smear back (imagine all the things he’s left off the table), the gap closes.Clinton can’t win. She can’t close the deal. So she’s trying to bash her way to something, but it certainly can not–mathematically–be the nomination.