Posted on 11/15/2007 3:43:17 AM PST by Kevmo
Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
OK, so you’ve got a thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket and you want to make a statement with it at the same time as getting 40X return on your “investment”, you want $40,000 for that $1000 bet, like Hillary did in her Pig Belly futures or whatever it was. You’re going to decide between putting it down on Hunter or Thompson over at Intrade because these are the 2 most conservative candidates in the race.
https://www.intrade.com/
Which one do you choose?
Let’s start with the guy who has 3 balls. He’s got courage in spades. He’s engaged enemy soldiers in Viet Nam when he was a LRRP ranger and he got a Bronze Star for his real bravery. His friend and supporter also has 3 balls, the guy who we all know as “the man who broke the sound barrier”, Chuck Yeager. While they’re campaigning in Iowa, all you have to do is ask Chuck to tell the story about how he and Bob Hoover were in Russia and got that chance to fly a YAK and Bob took it up gently and respectfully and flew it straight & level into the horizon… and then returned over the viewing stand flying upside down and basically causing the Russians to pee in their pants. After hearing this story or one of a million others, Hunter will take the podium and leverage that emotional courage language that Americans love, and they’ll all look at each other & nod, saying, “this is the guy who should be my president”.
Now let’s cover the guy who played a soldier in the movies. He was quite convincing when he was telling Jack Ryan of the CIA that he wouldn’t be able to get to the submarine because it involved flying in a helicopter, and the last time Jack was in a helicopter he spent 3 months recovering from the accident. It’s interesting and fun entertainment, but it is not real. While he and his friend are campaigning in Iowa, he will need to build his own emotional leverage with the audience, and this is not a Hollywood script.
Right now over at Intrade, Thompson futures contracts are trading at about 6%. There was a time when he had the lead and was trading at 35%, but over the last few weeks he has lost about 30 points. He had the spotlight shining on him as the most conservative guy with the best name recognition, while thousands of his supporters were crossing their fingers during the debates hoping he wouldn’t screw up.
https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/
Hunter futures contracts are at 0.1%. Over the last few weeks they have remained at 0.1%, with the volume staying put at 27778. That is the number to watch. All it takes is for that number to start moving. It means someone is buying Hunter’s contract at a very low price. Within a few weeks, that number will be history. Hunter has been campaigning on a shoestring budget and slowly gaining recognition in the polls, recently just coming in at 4%.
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/28889/republicans_2008_giuliani_28_thompson_19
All he needs is one more percent. Hunter needs to get to 5% in the coming weeks in order to be invited to the Iowa debate by our friends at the Iowa GOP.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922644/posts
At that point, everyone will know he’s at 5% in the polls. His futures contracts at Intrade, if they’re still at 0.1, will have relentless upward pressure from bargain hunters, but by then it will be too late to buy in at that price.
Here’s where the decision gets made, why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter rather than Thompson. In order to get 40X return by investing in Thompson, you would have to buy his contract to win the whole kit & caboodle, the presidency, which is now trading at 2.5.
2008.PRES.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to win 2008 US Presidential Election
At $6, you could not get 40X return on the Fred.Nominee contract. If you bought it at $5, the best you could get is 20X return.
2008.GOP.NOM.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008
The forum at Intrade seems to waver between those who think Fred’s campaign is imploding and those who think it will rebound. But they have freewheeling discussions about the why and how that we have been missing here on Free Republic.
https://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/1805.page
So your decision comes down to this: Is it more likely that Hunter will get 1% more exposure in national polls, and move up to 4 or 5% at Intrade or is it more likely that Thompson will win the presidency outright? Remember, this is the guy who had the spotlight shined on him as the conservative golden boy and lost 30 points at Intrade, and has been losing ground in the polls lately.
While his supporters are crossing their fingers hoping he doesn’t screw up, Hunter’s supporters are folding their hands in prayer hoping that he’ll just be himself.
Over the last few days, I’ve seen a couple of posts like this
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925179/posts?page=284#284
According to Polls, Fred Thompson Foundering
Posted by Kevmo to SergeiRachmaninov On News/Activism 11/13/2007 1:51:29 PM PST · 284 of 536
It is a bitter time for those who have invested all their hopes with Fred and repressed all doubts. ...Still it is not much fun when you have chosen your candidate, put him on a pedestal, and gone to war for him, and then reality starts to batter you. I’ve already trod the path from hopeful about Fred, to disappointed, to angry in my disappointment. I really should do better at being gentle to those who are somewhere else along on that path.
***That is some amazing candor. I honestly do think that Hunter will not disappoint you in that way. He may not win the nomination due to lack of name recognition, but he is doing what he can about that. His character stands head & shoulders above the others in the race.
That is the emotional language of someone who has felt betrayed by his candidate. But the Hunter followers do not feel betrayed, they have circled the wagons and they are coming out fighting. That’s where you put your money down, where there is fight to the inner core, and the guy they’re fighting for is genuine.
All it takes is that one or two Freepers will copy this article and send it to their wealthy friend who did so well in the stock market during the dotcom boom, or won a thousand bucks at a beer drinking tournament or whatever. Then we’ll start to see that 27778 number trickle, then it will flood through relentlessly. And that will serve as a metaphor for the entire republican campaign, what has been a trickle of support will soon break through the floodgates in myriads of ways, whether it’s our grandmother sending in the $25 check to Hunter’s campaign
http://www.gohunter08.com
or Iowans asking if they could put up a sign on their front lawn or our grandchild folding her hands in prayer for this courageous man.
And then we’ll see Hunter smile.
I don’t have any preference for one thread over another. I just reply to your posts where I find them.
I have to agree wit one thing you said. My comment “and they never will” was a personal opinion that did have a future component. I should have contented myself with the observation that they don’t and never have.
MY comments and observations to you have nothing to do with “semantics”. They have had to do with the operation of free markets and how to develop an understanding of the so you can make insightful observations instead of nonsense ones.
It appears that buyers have taken the entire block of Duncan Hunter contracts that were offered at ten cents and is looking to buy $18.40 more. At the moment, the bias in these contracts is up as the lowest asking price is now 20 cents.
Contrary to what you may think, this is not an issue for me. This is how markets work.
MY comments and observations to you have nothing to do with “semantics”. They have had to do with the operation of free markets and how to develop an understanding of the so you can make insightful observations instead of nonsense ones.
***We’ll let the readers and the market decide on that.
Indeed.
The following exchange at Intrade covers an interesting question, basically how long will Hunter’s futures be a bargain?
https://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/1797.page
CaliforniaArchitect
Intrade
Joined: 02/11/2007 22:03:49
Messages: 41
Offline
Thanks for that interesting article and keen perspective. It does appear that your article was the lever which has helped the Hunter contract get over the coefficient of static friction and his shares are slowly trading.
2008.GOP.NOM.HUNTER
Duncan Hunter to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008 M 0.1 0.2 0.1 28848 +0.0
It seems like there is a loadup on the Ask side. The last time I looked at the contract there weren’t that many contracts up for the asking.
BID
Qty Price
146 0.1
ASK
Price Qty
0.2 381
0.3 555
0.4 300
0.5 152
0.6 150
0.9 100
1.1 50
1.5 30
1.9 50
2.9 50
9.5 100
16.4 100
The followup question now would be, how long is the Hunter contract a bargain? If you think the target trade price is $4, then it wouldn’t be really worth the risk at buying in at $3.50.
ko
Intrade
Joined: 03/11/2007 19:01:54
Messages: 35
Online
CaliforniaArchitect wrote:
It seems like there is a loadup on the Ask side. The last time I looked at the contract there weren’t that many contracts up for the asking.
I agree, but I don’t know what it means. The last time I checked, there was only ONE ask price, of 0.1 and NO bid prices. As a Hunter supporter, I consider this to be significant! But someone will probably be along shortly to straighten us out.
CaliforniaArchitect wrote:
The followup question now would be, how long is the Hunter contract a bargain? If you think the target trade price is $4, then it wouldn’t be really worth the risk at buying in at $3.50.
That’s a good question. Of course, for me, I would consider it a bargain at $50, but everyone knows that there’s an exaggerated emotional component to that suggestion, and there are traders here who would LOVE to deal with me, hah hah.
Here’s how I would look at it. The price someone is willing to pay for a futures contract would have maybe 5 elements: Current Poll Support + Financial Support + Followers’ Energeticism + Media Buzz + Campaign Ability. Let’s use the respective Acronyms CPS + FS +FE + MB +CA. I’m sure there are more. When you look at Ron Paul, his CFS was ~3%(???notsure); FS was low then in one day, high — and notably here on Intrade that was treated with a yawn; FE is very high; MB was kind of high for such a low polling candidate; CA was probably high, though I was not following his campaign. All that translated into a trading price in the 9’s, and Delphi felt compelled to ask why. Huckabee’s CPS was kind of low; his FS was medium; FE was medium; MB was Medium; CA was pretty high, he’s an engaging speaker and campaigner. That translated into an Intrade value that was higher than the poll numbers at the time, if I recall correctly. Here’s where I see Hunter: CPS low; FS low; FE very high; MB very low; CA about medium. It all translates into a completely stagnant Inprice value, which looks like it is in the midst of changing upward.
Going on poll results is not based upon a presumption any more than one would presume that 5 cards dealt in a poker game have the same odds as 5 cards dealt to someone else. Hunter would need to go from 4% to 5%. What are those chances? I would put them at about 2 to 1. So I would be taking a 2-to-1 bet to gain a 40-to-1 contract. That’s a great bargain. It’s like poker, when the pot odds are way above your hand odds.
When Hunter gets to 0.2, the pot odds go to 20-to-1 payout, and at 0.4 it’s 10-to-1, at $3 it’s 3-to-4 payout. The RATIONAL approach is to gauge what you think are his chances of Intrade meeting the poll support against the current “pot odds”. But the irrational approach is when I’m a Hunter supporter, I see his chances of getting to 5% in the polls and being invited to the Iowa debate as less than 1-to-1, maybe 1-to-1.5. That means I consider a $4 price to still be a bargain, and there are plenty of Intraders out there who probably think it would be a good time to sell. That’s the beauty of the market. Eventually the folks who think a $10 price for Hunter when he’s polling 5% ( basically 1-to-2 emotional hand odds) are very few, and they buy only a few contracts and the price tends to stabilize around an agreed median between the two camps.
For me personally, I think Hunter’s chances of getting to 5% in the polls are about 1-to-1.2 (20% likelihood of not happening) and that gets weighed against the current price and what I’m willing to pay, which unfortunately is not that much because I am losing my job and money is extremely tight in our household as Christmas approaches and I have to find ways to make the kids happy.
The interesting thing about the elements CPS + FS +FE + MB +CA is that they are constantly dynamic. When we see someone trading above their polling numbers like Ron Paul was, it’s an indicator that the other elements are high, and when we see them trading below the polling numbers the reverse is true. In Thompson’s case it is a blinking red light because he has plenty of money, media buzz (he’s a hollywood pro), FE seems about medium or high. That means his CA score is Very Low, or there is some other element in my goofy equation that is bringing down his score here at Intrade.
Can one make real money on this or is this just matchsticks?
It’s real money. Hunter’s Ask price doubled yesterday at Intrade, the contracts have started to move. As of today, you couldn’t get 40 to 1 odds on my scenario that at 5% polling and getting to the debates in Iowa should reflect a 4% Intrade price, you’d get 20 to 1 odds . Fred’s numbers at Intrade continue to drop, so I suppose that means Fred’s contracts are becoming an even better bargain if someone really feel he’s going to turn around.
2008.GOP.NOM.HUNTER
Duncan Hunter to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008 M 0.1 0.2 0.1 28856 +0.0
2008.GOP.NOM.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008 M 5.6 5.9 5.5 93115 -0.2
Looks like good advice, so I’m pinging Duncan Hunter and his son, who are both Freepers.
If Duncan Hunter wants to become an instantly serious player he should jump all over this news>>>
“The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.” Jordan Fox of Pittsburgh was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq, cutting his service short by three months. “A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.”
http://kdka.com/local/military.signing.bonuses.2.571660.html
“Approximately 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard recently returned home after serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq. They served 22 months — “longer than any other ground combat unit” — received nine fatalities, and were awarded dozens of Purple Hearts.
But the Army wrote the orders for 1,162 of these soldiers for 729 days, making them ineligible for full educational benefits under the GI Bill, which requires written orders saying they were deployed for 730 days or more. These soldiers were shorted more than $200 per month for college.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/04/national-guard-education/
Kevmo: $100 would get you $50,000. If you win you gotta buy me a dinner.
LL: You gotta deal, Kevmo. 500 to 1 is an absolute steal.
***Here’s an update.
The Field was actually at 1000 to 1, but it is moving at pretty high volume, it looks like it could be hard to get it at 0.1 so it will probably be a 500 to 1 bet.
2008.PRES.FIELD
Field (any other candidate) to win 2008 US Presidential Election M 0.1 0.2 0.1 5482 0
Hunter’s contracts have started to move. It would be hard to get them at 0.1 but it’s still happening. Ask Price is 0.2.
2008.GOP.NOM.HUNTER
Duncan Hunter to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008 M 0.1 0.2 0.1 28869 0
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On Hunter’s contracts, there is a mystery about someone shorting them without expected gain, which is a maneuver I don’t know how to explain.
GAW838 wondered “who’s shorting these contracts at .1 and .2, what do they expect to gain. Unless that are MMs that pay no fees, they have already lost their entire max gain if they are price-taking, then they have to get out at some point or pay expiry.” Response: There are arb [arbitration] trades in many of the markets that only make sense if someone is trading commission free.
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Thompson continues his downward slide for the nomination, with the RTL endorsement greeted with a yawn. He’s below McCain, Ron Paul, and Huckabee.
2008.GOP.NOM.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008 M 5.3 5.9 5.7 93128 0
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Betting on the whole shebang for Thompson to win the presidency has actually gone down in price from 2.5 to 2.0 on high volume, reflecting a change in payout from 40-to-1 to 50-to-1. That looks to me like where much of this issue is being played out on Intrade for now.
2008.PRES.THOMPSON(F)
Fred Thompson to win 2008 US Presidential Election M 1.7 2.0 2.0 17172
Exchange on another thread pertinent to this data.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1928691/posts?page=331#331
To: Petronski
Under no definition of the term can you call 54 to 1 “starting to emerge from his shadow.”
***That’s because you aren’t looking at the CHANGE IN THE DATA. What was once 350-to-1 has become 60-to-1, then 54-to-1 and with Hunter’s ASK price doubling it is heading to less than 30-to-1. In the meantime, for the long haul contract Fred.President, in the last few days it went from 2.5 to 2.0, and the ASK price for 2008.PRES.FIELD has doubled to 0.2. Using your metrics that’s going from 25-to-1 down to 20-to-2 (or 10-to-1) in just a few short days since I posted my analysis suggesting that Hunter’s contracts were undervalued.
There has been a fundamental change in confidence at Intrade.
http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/
331 posted on 11/21/2007 12:42:49 PM PST by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 328 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
saving...
Duncan Hunter is the one person that can truely be a real leader for all the folks in the USA! He is very close to being a Real Ronald Reagan!
He will not move one inch until someone finds him and puts an organization behind him!! the opposite of George Soros for the republicans.
Duncan beats all the others hands down! It is insane but, Ann Coulter as a vice president looks great also!! Yeah!! scare the hell out of Hillary
I love Duncan, but in a race where everybody is trying to prove they’re the real conservative, he should have been on top from the minute he announced, yet he can’t get out of the basement. That means his campaign is badly run. I hope the eventual nominee chooses him to run ICE or DHS.
I love Duncan, but in a race where everybody is trying to prove they’re the real conservative, he should have been on top from the minute he announced, yet he can’t get out of the basement. That means his campaign is badly run. I hope the eventual nominee chooses him to run ICE or DHS.
***Hunter was starting to gain the lead with activist socons until Thompson entered the race. My data? Free Republic polls that showed him on top. Thompson “stole the wind from his sails” and only just now is he beginning to emerge from Thompson’s shadow.
It does not mean Hunter’s campaign was badly run. He has done what he could with the hand he’s been dealt. Tomcat Thompson, on the other hand, had plenty of name recognition, plenty of money, had the lead in polls and at Intrade. He squandered it, all of it, to the point where he’s behind Ron Paul at Intrade. THAT is evidence of a poorly run campaign.
And if you love Duncan, you’ll get the keyword abuses removed on this thread with the admin moderator.
As I said, he should have been the clear frontrunner (or at least fighting for the lead with Rudy) since a few weeks after he announced. It's like saying, "As the front of the pack enters the last two miles of the Boston Marathon, Bob Mbuto is at the back of the pack. However, we know he's got a reputation as a really good runner and the Vegas odds favored him heavily, so he should sprint to the front and win any minute now." Intrade means diddly, in the real world duncan Hunter will not be the nominee.
And if you love Duncan, you’ll get the keyword abuses removed on this thread with the admin moderator.
I'm sorry...when were you put in charge of determining my emotional state? I didn't get that memo...and if the mods were interested they would have done it by now. And if you love Duncan, you’ll get the keyword abuses removed on this thread with the admin moderator.
I’m sorry...when were you put in charge of determining my emotional state? I didn’t get that memo...
***In post #335, you started with, “I love Duncan, “ that’s where I got the memo, the memo was from you.
As I said, he...
***And as I have said, Hunter would have had the lead if the guy with more name recognition hadn’t come in and squandered it.
Intrade means diddly
***Prediction markets are more accurate than poll results.
The Efficacy Of Prediction Markets The Liberty Papers ^
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922961/posts
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Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
You're a bit slow on the uptake here. I didn't ask where I indicated that I love Duncan Hunter, I asked when you got put in charge of my emotions, or more precisely, when you were put in charge of what windmill I'd have to tilt at to prove my regard for this candidate.
And as I have said, Hunter would have had the lead if the guy with more name recognition hadn’t come in and squandered it.
That doesn't explain why he was languishing in the basement for the six months it took Fred to show up. Throughout those six months he had a wide open shot at the title of "electable conservative" and he did little to nothing with it.
Prediction markets are more accurate than poll results.
They can be, but markets can have irrational exuberance, too. And let's be real here: You're not asking me to believe a prediction market that has Hunter as the GOP nominee. You're asking me to believe that your personal prediction of a Hunter surge is accurate. I think you'll agree that's a far more dicey proposition.
SUSSA has an excellent analysis on why that isn't the reason for Hunter's failure thus far.
I am with you all the way. My family will also write his name in, if we have to. I am believing God to do a mighty work.
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