Long time, no see, dear Reader.  It’s June 24th, the first Democratic debates are two/three days away, and Andrew Yang is back in the mid-teens.  Welcome to PredictIt?

Warren Comes Back

In probably the most logical shift in the market, Warren, off the back of “she’s got a plan for that” catching on with the media and voters, has risen in both the polls and (a bit more aggressively) in the market.  From 6c to 22c at peak!  Of course, she’s still in third overall.

She gets the first debate (and perhaps the most eyeballs?) all to herself in the sense that she’s the only one people really care about that night.  Perhaps she makes a good impression and continues her rise?  Or maybe her coverage gets drowned out by what happens on Thursday.  (Or maybe, and this seems closest to the truth to me, within a week or two we will barely be talking about things that have happened in the debate and instead will be talking about fundraising and the next debate).

YangGang

Andrew Yang tweeted out his PredictIt price (insanely, at one point on Saturday, he was priced higher than Biden to win the general election).  The gang followed.  His price rose.  This is the big moment, you see?  The debate!  Finally, everyone will see Yang’s ideas and charisma and he’ll begin a non-stop rise in the polls!  Choo-choo!

Ok.

(Or he’s going to get lost in the noise, fade in July/August, and fail to make the September debates.  Fight me, nerds).

Mayor Pete’s Rough Week

Setting aside the actually important issues, the police-community tension and racial fault lines in South Bend have exposed Pete’s political weakness with black voters.  Combined with losing some of his highly educated / liberal white support to Warren, his price is matching it’s opening lows of 11c, far from the heady days of 21c at the peak of his boomlet.

That said, he does generally do well in televised appearances and the debates are an opportunity in that sense.  He’ll be young and different and a lot of folks won’t have seen him before, so who knows.  Of course, he’ll also be on the same stage as a lot of other heavyweights competing for attention and he’s almost certain to get a question or two on what’s going on in South Bend.

The Market Still Hates Joe Biden

…and is convinced he’s going to bomb in the debates?  He’s dealing with fallout from some of his current/past positive remarks about segregationists and so on that he’s worked with.  Some people think that’s going to hurt him with black voters, and it probably has/will but chiefly among the younger set of black voters that weren’t really into him in the first place.

In general, he’s not a terrible debater and he is guaranteed to be someone folks are talking about afterward.  In fact, the biggest risk for him is the world where somehow he fades into the background on debate night.  Conversely, a world where his support rises after the debates would really blow a lot of minds on PredictIt, and he might go back over 30c.

Bernie Sags

The man needs some juice for his campaign!  He’s bleeding some support to Warren and he tops the ranks when you ask Democratic voters which candidate they’d be least likely to vote for (he also retains a sizeable number of diehards).  Accordingly, he’s slowly slowly slowly ebbed in the market, now down to 14c.

The Stealthy Return of Kamala?

One interesting movement, as of yesterday and today, is that Kamala is off her recent 10c lows and back up to 13c, chewing through quite a lot of volume to get there.  Why?  Well she’s one of the candidates probably due a surge of support at some time.  She has a good debate slot (offers a great contrast to the three other heavyweight white dudes she’ll be standing next to on center-stage).  And if anyone is going to capitalize on an erosion in Joe Biden’s support among moderate and older black voters, it’s Kamala.  I’m bitter because I was nearly first in line at 9c and was hoping to get some fills pre-debate.  Alas.

Tulsi Gabbard and Hillary Clinton are both worth 3c, apparently

Ok.

Will any of the 1%ers rise?

Inslee would be my best guess.  Maybe Bennet.  Hickenlooper might take some shots at Bernie.  But honestly, none of them are that impressive?  For meme in-debate betting, Williamson would seem to be the best shot for a bump in price but for some reason the market hasn’t taken to her like it has taken to Yang, Tulsi, Hillary, etc.

The Tournament

While it’s all I’ve talked about on this blog this year, there are other markets on PredictIt besides DNOM!  This week, they’re running a tournament to find out who can best predict the debates, centered on predicting movement from pre- to post-debate polling by Scott Rasmussen (his stuff is done through HarrisX now; his namesake firm is run by another guy now).  Read this for details on the tournament and read this for details on how Scotty Ras is doing the polling.  The winner is determined by whoever has the most overall profit and I’m already up like $5 so watch out.

Betting Strategy Update

Many people neg-risk these big high-volume markets, a fine strategy for those that don’t have a lot of time to devote to monitoring its every movement.  I’ve argued that flipping shares back and forth is more profitable in the long run, provided you know what you’re doing.  I like to think that I know what I’m doing (at least a little bit?) and have now surpassed in net profit from 2020.DNOM what would be the best possible neg-risk pay-out in the market.

Best possible neg-risk pay-out right now:

The Rock (or, like, Bullock) wins and you get $1831.31, an additional $433.83 over the $1397.48 you’d have already been paid for the worst-case scenario of Joe Biden winning.

(And none of you have perfect neg-risk, let’s be honest).

My net profit in the market so far: $1920.75

Eat it, neg-riskers!  Of course, I have like $200 in dead shares right now (maybe) and I’m sure I’ll screw up at some point on some other trade but yeah.  If you can figure out how to buy and sell 325,000 shares you too can make money flipping.

(How to view your own market history: click account, click history, click the markets tab, select the market you’re interested in, export via date range you want.  In excel, =sum(G:G) + sum(H:H) will give you your net profit less fees.)

Here’s what that looks like in graphical form:

A bit better than the $500 or so I was at when I last posted a version of this in late March.  Still a long ways to go – my goal is at least $10k total profit from this market by the time things are all said in done 13 months from now.  We shall see!

Happy trading my friends, and may all your debate predictions come true.

 

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.