Presidential Election Futures Contracts and The Iowa Electronic Markets provide a good way to gauge the progress of the presidential campaigns. But it seems there is a problem.
A single individual executed a massive selloff of futures that caused the probability of Bush winning to drop from a 54 percent probability of winning to a 10 percent probabiity. Fortunately, within about 15 minutes, the market returned back to it's previous level.
According to an article in National Review, the motive for this sell off is purely political:
What could have been the attacker’s motive? Obviously, it couldn’t have been to maximize profits. Even if Bush loses the election and the futures position pays off, those attacked would make more money by being patient and selling at 54 instead of 10. In fact, last Friday when the futures snapped back to 54 once the attacker was done selling, every contract he had sold at 10 showed an immediate 44 point loss. [Source]
In 1992, George Soros conducted a similar attack against The Bank of England. Soros has pledged his fortune to defeating Bush so it wouldn't be surprising to see him doing this sort of thing.
Soros reminds me of one of the villains from a James Bond movie. I can picture him sitting around in his lair with some of his minions scheming about nefarious ways to defeat George Bush. Unfortunately, this isn't a movie and Soros is a real life character who should keep his nose out of American politics. I suppose it's better that he waste his time and money trying to manipulate the US Election instead of trying to invent some kind of death ray, but he does get tiresome.
Go read all the details at National Review.
Posted by jdmays at October 19, 2004 05:05 PM | TrackBack