Less than two weeks before Iowa, the mainstream press took a little looksie at what “ the bookmakers in Las Vegas and London” were predicting. At that point, the answer was the same dreck the pundits wuz spewin’: Hillary was going to take the democratic nomination.

Political futures markets, which are illegal in the US, but run like whoa out of Scotland and other gambling havens, and for academic purposes at the University of Iowa, are arguably better predictors than the polls. But they work best in close proximity to the event. Which is why the Iowa electronic futures market, which covers presidential nomination politics, was one of the best places to catch Obama’s momentum leading into the Iowa caucuses.

On January 1st, the IEM had Obama trading at .267, with HRC at .62 (the share values are rough correlates for their percentage chance at getting the nomination). On January 3rd, Caucus day, Obama peaked at .50, and the average price was .384. Today, Obama’s average trading price was .450, with HRC down to .512. In other words, smart money is being put down on Obama (though not by me or other law-abiding American citizens). Or, at the very least, the “Hillary is inevitable” train is a rusted out relic bound for the scrapyard.

From the IEM

Date Contract Units $Volume LowPrice HighPrice AvgPrice LastPrice
01/01/08 CLIN_NOM 1,092 678.795 0.600 0.644 0.622 0.633
01/01/08 DROF_NOM 1,588 25.323 0.015 0.016 0.016 0.016
01/01/08 EDWA_NOM 2,691 307.929 0.110 0.130 0.114 0.110
01/01/08 OBAM_NOM 1,369 365.701 0.237 0.299 0.267 0.244

01/02/08 CLIN_NOM 1,144 700.733 0.589 0.634 0.613 0.590
01/02/08 DROF_NOM 1,172 20.174 0.014 0.023 0.017 0.018
01/02/08 EDWA_NOM 2,738 342.769 0.109 0.141 0.125 0.113
01/02/08 OBAM_NOM 1,408 366.883 0.242 0.285 0.261 0.284

01/03/08 CLIN_NOM 3,826 2,042.211 0.481 0.605 0.534 0.508
01/03/08 DROF_NOM 4,836 72.717 0.010 0.021 0.015 0.011
01/03/08 EDWA_NOM 7,765 572.009 0.031 0.128 0.074 0.040
01/03/08 OBAM_NOM 4,494 1,724.430 0.282 0.500 0.384 0.473

01/04/08 CLIN_NOM 1,525 781.107 0.497 0.536 0.512 0.510
01/04/08 DROF_NOM 942 6.778 0.005 0.010 0.007 0.008
01/04/08 EDWA_NOM 3,816 138.806 0.026 0.052 0.036 0.033
01/04/08 OBAM_NOM 1,859 835.556 0.400 0.469 0.449 0.465

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 2:47 am and is filed under Economics, Election 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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