If you haven’t heard of Intrade, you probably are outside leading a normal life. For those of you that haven’t, it’s the popular betting site that concentrates on political events. According to the Washington Post ” The site’s collective wisdom tends to be more reliable than than the cadre of professional pundits when it comes to forecasting election results. (And, yes, we are including ourselves in the “professional pundit” category — for better and worse.) In 2008, bettors got only two states wrong — Indiana and Missouri. Bettors thought Indiana would go Republican and Missouri would go Democratic. Neither prediction was right. Those two states canceled each other out, however, keeping the site very close to the actual electoral college total. In 2004, the site got every state right.”
The latest odds after the Republican convention, show Romney got zero bounce from the convention. Romney is just 43% chance to win versus Obama at 56.8%. Those are bad odds for someone that should have drawn a lot closer. These were pretty much the odds going into the convention and based on Intrade, Romney got no bounce.
My own read, Romney would make a great President and boy this country needs a turn-around artist, no make that a turn around team. But at any rate there is no denying that the market loves Obama or more accurately Ben Bernanke and easy money. The market has risen more under Obama than any but one President, Truman, since World War II. The bull is roaring!