November 5, 2004

SOROS LOSERMAN:

I’m Loving It: Krugman’s post-election meltdown — and more! (Donald Luskin, 11/05/04, National Review)

A particular humiliation for Soros must be the fact that he, celebrated as “the man who broke the Bank of England” with his speculative attacks on the British pound in 1992, was bested during this election by a tiny online futures market. We’ll never know if it was Soros, but as I’ve reported here, someone using Soros’s trading philosophy tried to manipulate the futures on George Bush’s reelection probabilities, traded online at Tradesports.com. After whoever it was threw away millions of dollars on losing trades to push futures prices down at critical moments in the campaign — to make it seem as though Bush’s chances were worse than they really were — the futures nevertheless turned out to be near-perfect predictors of the election.

What other form of polling had a track record like this, in this crazy election year? Tradesports futures prices, as of month-end September (a little more than a month before the election),

correctly predicted Bush would win;

correctly predicted all 50 states except three (N.H., Wis., N.M.);

correctly predicted all 34 Senate races except four (Alaska, Fla., N.C., S.D. — in all cases the GOP won);

correctly predicted the GOP would keep Senate control; and

correctly predicted the GOP would keep House control.

Tradesports futures prices as of the last Friday in October (four days before the election)

correctly predicted Bush would win;

correctly predicted all 50 states except one (Wis.);

correctly predicted all 34 senate races except one (Alaska);

correctly predicted the GOP would keep Senate control;

correctly predicted the GOP would keep House control.


It sure seems like someone must have been forcing oil prices too.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 5, 2004 12:22 PM
Comments

And then he proceeds to dump onto some of the shills who run certain wellknown weblogs. He should have included Sulivan in his list, too.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at November 5, 2004 1:04 PM

On Nov. 1, tradesports had all 50 states right. On the second, when the bogus exit polls came out, it went berzerk.

Posted by: mike earl at November 5, 2004 1:23 PM

Soros probably has enough outstanding futures contracts due to start his own chain of quick lube centers across the country with the surplus barrels he's fixing to buy at + $50 a pop.

Posted by: John at November 5, 2004 1:28 PM

OJ,

I don't know if you were kidding about Soros & oil, but I'm not. I think it's pretty obvious he (and/or others) were playing with the prices.

Bush should have released the SPR in the third week of October, just to cost them a few hundred million.

That would have made a real "strategic" reserve.

Posted by: BB at November 5, 2004 1:38 PM

BB:

No, I'm serious--oil was so disconnected from reality I just assume someone was gaming it.

Raoul:

Isn't it fair to say that when folks like Andrew Sullivan switched from Bush to Kerry it was a leading indicator of a big GOP year?

Posted by: oj at November 5, 2004 1:44 PM

The Mason Dixon polls got every state except MN right.

Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at November 5, 2004 2:08 PM

There was somebody willing to spend millions to influence Tradesports? Can you introduce him to me?

Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 5, 2004 3:14 PM

Amazing how rational the market can be, isn't it?

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 5, 2004 3:21 PM

"It sure seems like someone must have been forcing oil prices too."

Yeah, all those buyers.


Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 5, 2004 4:51 PM

Sullivan was just the worst giving us that "Oh, woe is me! Such tough decisions I must make— between my head and my heart."

There were a lot of people who believed the hype and after months of behaving like Bush supporters, wanted to jump on the winning side before it was too late, but Sulivan wasn't one of them. Just means that I'm not going to bother with the opinions of any of those opportunists and shills, whether or not I did earlier.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at November 5, 2004 6:27 PM

OJ:

Sorry I cant buy it (npi) the oil market is to deep. some kid a trading desk at exxonmobil would see somebody buy irrationnaly and would just kill him. Soros has money, but he doesn't have that kind of money.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at November 6, 2004 2:12 AM

Who was the guy who tried to corner silver back in 1979. Got chewed up right smart. Was it old man Hunt?

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at November 6, 2004 2:13 AM

The Hunt brothers--didn't get caught immediately, nor did Soros when playing currencies.

Posted by: oj at November 6, 2004 8:45 AM
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