What a hilarious night in the election markets!  I hope you all made it out profitably.  The basic lesson of the night – if you didn’t – is to pay close attention to how the election day vote differs from the early vote (and how both differ from the first round of voting).  And to always cross-verify results by checking multiple sources…

Blowout in GA Gov

Cagle vs Kemp went as expected, with Kemp running away with all but two counties.  The MoV market was a bit slow at first but the 25% or higher contract took the lead after about 5% of the vote reported (it was clear the election-day vote was breaking harder for Kemp than the early vote) and never looked back.

Flip! Sleeper Lt. Gov race delivers

No one really paid attention to this race for the first hour (yours truly included).  Even though early returns were close, the presumption was that  Shafer’s Round 1 strength in the metro Atlanta area would eventually carry him to victory.  But as more and more votes came in and the race stayed close…  well the savvy were able to notice that Shafer’s performance in the election-day vote wasn’t as strong as his first round and that there wouldn’t be enough of a margin in metro Atlanta to save him.  I got punished for not doing that math here!

 

Bourdeaux out-muscles Kim

GA-07 D primary was a lightly-traded market (it took a long time before we got results from Forsyth and Gwinnett), yet it nonetheless managed to flipflop around a bit.  Most of the panic/greed trading was again based on people thinking the early vote margin would hold for election day and the fact that Gwinnett’s early vote came in first, temporarily giving Kim a lead.

The meme of the night – an Associated Press transposition error temporarily flips GA-06

This was really funny.  After early results came in, McBath looked like she would pull away with an election-day vote edge and the market responded correctly even though Abel had been leading for a while (causing a temporary flip).

Then someone at the Associated Press decided to enter the results for a judicial race in Fulton county into the box for GA-06…. and when the NYT updated with 21k votes for Abel and 16k for McBath it completely flipped the market.  Look at the candles at the volume peak LOL:

Thoughts and prayers for those who got whiplash from that one (and a reminder to always check multiple results sites, like the ones I linked to in my preview!).  And kudos to those of you that spotted it early enough to make a killing.  I am sad to report that while my first instinct was that it was an error, I didn’t bother following through to check on it quickly and didn’t make nearly as much as I could have.

These are the spots that election-market traders live for.  If you got burned by this one, don’t worry there will be another some day.  This is PredictIt after all.

Bonus plug

If you’re looking for stuff to do this Wednesday afternoon, 538 ballot is poised to go… somewhere.  Four polls are released and not in the average (YG, MC, Marist, and Ras) while the market is expecting one more any time now (Quinn).  With 0.5-width bracket this one could be fun.

There are also two mention markets for Pompeo’s senate hearing that I intend to check out. (“Intepreter” and “McFaul“).

And of course there’s always WHT, which is in a very interesting spot.

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Disclaimer: I probably have positions or intend to take positions in just about all the markets I discuss herein.  You should always do your own research prior to making any investment decision. You should consider my advice and knowledge I share to be fundamentally biased in its presentation and selection by my own financial incentives.  While I do not knowingly lie I certainly do knowingly omit information that I think gives me an edge.