Duncan Hunter gaining traction?

cybear wrote:

No... I am putting to use many years of political experience AND trading experience. I have traded futures and swaps for a living. You can follow the herd if you like. Thank you in advance for your money.

My political sense is that the activists will be looking for another candidate to pop up once Huckabee has run his course. While he is fine on social issues, his spending and clemency record will (have) kill(ed) him. He is in severe decline even now. My trading sense tells me that the odds are too long on Hunter. More below.

That is my sense as well, which was why I posted the article. In addition, Thompson is a weak candidate, having lost 30 points on Intrade, drooping in poll results, losing ground at Intrade from yesterday's debate when he's supposedly "all in" for Iowa. Here's an Intrade forum where his "Fredfall" is discussed:

Thompson is tanking. Why?
http://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/1805.page

cybear wrote:

1> My point about moderates was clear enough. I can't help it if you don't read closely. Moderates matter insofar as activists believe that a candidate can appeal to them. Directly, they don't decide anything, especially in a caucus state. Nevertheless, they do matter indirectly.

2> Who do you think the 'field' represents? In IA, the field is 6. SC=50. NH=20. Florida=18. Nevada=26. Do you 'get it' yet? Have you even looked at the GOP primaries quotations for today? Apparently not. Or, maybe you don't know how to interpret the information.

3> The InTrade odds on Hunter today are 333:1, yesterday 1000:1. That is asinine. At the very worst, they are 50:1. Hell, Rice and Gingrich have shorter odds quoted than Hunter and they aren't even running.

Those are 3 good points. 1) I also get the sense that your correspondent simply didn't read the material. 2) I've been following that "field" thing for a few weeks now. Someone has really moved into that position quietly for both the Iowa.caucus and GOP.President.Win contracts, where Hunter is embedded. It's a safe bet when his contracts are still tied with guys like Ron Paul, and when the breakout occurs, the decision will be made as to which one to stick with. 3) I agree, and that's a rapid rise in one day, from 1000:1 to 333:1 and there's still volume moving on these contracts. Someone tripled their money yesterday.

cybear wrote:

<< Hunter has no money, a weak/small organization... >>

Neither did Clinton in 1992.
He had enough organization to show up in MN last weekend at the GOP state central meeting. Their caucuses aren't until Feb 5th. I know for a fact that his organization has been working in IA. How effectively? We will see.

<< The best you can hope for is a tiny bump to close out your position for a small loss or breakeven. But I doubt that even that will happen. >>

Perhaps you are right. In that case, my small bet will lose. If I am right, however, I will score pretty big. If Hunter merely reaches 10.0, I will multiply my bet by 100 since I bought at 0.1. I will take those odds.

That has been my point all along as well. They're attractive odds.

cybear wrote:

<< He has about as much traction as summer performance tires on ice! >>

You don't drive on ice much, do you.... 'Summer performance tires' are ideal on ice, other than tires with (illegal) studs of course. Snow tires suck on ice.

Twit.

I see you're running into the same stuff I do, which is that the peanut gallery naysayers dislike Hunter so much that it seems to even blind them to money making opportunities. It's fascinating. Good luck on your bet. If you got in at 0.1, you can already get out with a profit. Good timing.

Anonymous wrote:

If anything - *FRED* is the dark horse in this race.
He is the Reagan conservative. Charismatic. Smart. Tough. And conservative up and down the line.

There it is. You're carrying water for Fred. There's a bunch of Intraders who watched him lose 30 points here who would probably see you as being the foolish one.

Anonymous wrote:

I agree with you re: Huck. He'll crash very soon. I saw the video tonight of the mother of the murder victim of the parole. Tragic. I think Huck is lousy on MANY levels. Beware teh man who thinks he knows what's right for you - and is willing to use the govt to impose it!
The field in NH is all Paul - not Duncan! I have shorted it.

You have a lot of exclamation points when you write, expending a lot of emotional energy on a candidate who supposedly doesn't have a chance. I felt that Tommy Thompson and Brownback didn't have any chance, and I never bothered to log onto any threads to say that with so much vehemence. Like Shakespeare says, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much".

Do you really have to accuse everyone who disagrees with you about Hunter of having some sort of agenda. Can't people just think you're wrong. You accused me of being a peanut gallery nay-sayer who is just out to keep the price down when I am actually long (albeit only 10 contracts) and would love to see it go high enough to be worth shorting.

Both of you are clearly Hunter supporters and Ko, you have so much as stated you have agenda to drive the price up.

Canadaman005 wrote:

Maybe people like the Hunter contract because it is so cheap, lol!! Ko, you're an ok guy and because of that I'm inviting you to jump on the RP bandwagon. That +3.3 you quote for the Iowa field is surely RP support, not Hunter support. But nice try.

Yep it's cheap, and it tripled in value yesterday. The point of Intrade is to make money, isn't it? Ron Paul went up 20%, very respectable. But wouldn't you rather make 300% than 20% in one day? The 3.3 point jump is Ron Paul + Hunter until it gets separated, and the basis for my viewpoint was that Paul went up 20% while Hunter went up 100%. Paul is already separated out on the Pres.Win contracts and he saw a modest rise while the 2008.PRES.FIELD saw a 100% jump. That's HUNTER, not Ron Paul.

Canadaman005 wrote:

Cybear... who are you and where did you come from? What on earth do you base your predictions about Hunter on and your assumptions about RP supporters? From redstate and freerepublic?

While I argue that the polls of "likely republican voters" are not very accurate ....

My analysis came from a couple of polls that showed at the time that Hunter had 4% support nationwide. Delphi has stated that he's had 3-4% measurable support all along, so that's probably about where he is.

Canadaman005 wrote:

On what real basis can you really conclude that Hunter is "gaining traction"? If anything, he's at the bottom end of an icy hill with his wheels spinning in frustration. Why are we wasting time talking about this? If you want a pro-war, big government republican there are already 7 other choices - Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, McCain, Giuliani, Tancredo, and Brownback... oh wait, Brownback already left the race, maybe it is time for Hunter to follow? If you aren't, at this point in the race, even getting more poll support than Paul it probably is a pretty good time to pack it in. Just my thoughts.

I posted analyses that showed Huckabee won debates from Intrade deltas, and then his poll numbers subsequently rose. Hunter won yesterday's debate using the same analysis. Hunter is a rock-ribbed conservative who's strong on issues that are hitting americans' radar: War On Terror, Illegal Immigration, Fair Trade Policies rather than Fleece Trade, Pro-life, has a son in Iraq fighting this war and Hunter himself won a Bronze star in viet nam so he can look our fighting boys straight in the eye and ask for the sacrifices that he himself gave. He's an inspiring figure.

cybear wrote:

.... It is pretty obvious I am playing a long odds strategy. All he needs to do is get to second tier for me to win.

That, in essence, was my entire strategy that I posted. And if you get out at $4 you make 40X return. Not bad at all. If you manage to get out at $10 you'll make 100X return. You can't do that with Thompson unless he wins the whole kit & caboodle -- the presidency.

GAW838 wrote:

I'll just point out that although the price listed (the last price an contract moved at) is 0.2, you can't actually sell at that price because there are 681 orders in line in front of you. I actually own 10 contracts at 0.1 that I would list to sell if there was unreasonable prospect that they would be filled any time soon absent some big event that changes the fundamentals.

It looks to me like the Hunter contract burned through all those 0.2 orders and he was selling at 0.3 last time I checked. His contract is in the process of overcoming the coefficient of static friction.

True, but I would still have to wait in line behind a few hundred orders to get out without paying fees that would exceed the profits.

BTW, .1 to .3 is a 200% gain, not 300% and percentage changes are very misleading at such extremes.

The lion's share of the Iowa Field contact is coming from Paul, not Hunter. If he's only trading at .2-.3 for the nomination, it's unlikely he accounts for more than .5 of the Field price. Again, looking at just the percentage changes is misleading here, since the Iowa field price is over an order of magnitude higher than Hunter's nom.

As I've said, I don't think that is warranted for Paul either, but it's pretty clear that that accounts for the price there.

GAW838 wrote:

BTW, .1 to .3 is a 200% gain, not 300% and percentage changes are very misleading at such extremes.

OOOPs,

Aren't you glad I don't do your taxes?

GAW838 wrote:

As I've said, I don't think that is warranted for Paul either, but it's pretty clear that that accounts for the price there.

Basically, it's a safe bet because it's Paul + Hunter and the traders won't need to differentiate until Intrade breaks out the contracts. I suppose that's a form of arbitrage.

ko - do you get paid per post? lol (j/k)

There are far too many things you said which range from somewhat intelligent to ridiculous to paranoid. ("holding water for Fred" - lmao). Keep in mind I'm Canadian - I'm not "holding water" for anyone. I'm not even long Fred. My only position currently is short the Field for NH. I follow US politics much more closely than most Americans (let alone Canadians). I've lived and worked in a few different states, and travelled throughout the USA.

cy: << I said I thought he would be next up after Huck falls apart.>>

cy, it is true that you did not say "traction". KO did. But what you did say (quoted above) implies that he will make a LARGE move up in the polls ("next up"), just as Huckabee did. "next up" implies more than just a tradeable bump. It means he will become the next one in the spotlight, etc. I disagree strongly. I think the odds of that happening are ZERO. In fact, I still think that Romney could win Iowa. Huckabee is horrible. If the GOP is stupid enough to nominate him, they'll deserve what they'll get (i.e. big losses).

It's one thing to think the contract is undervalued, and play it for a bounce/trade. In that case, it may or may not be a good trade, but it's certainly within the range of possibilities. However, that is not what you guys meant. You both wrote about Hunter in terms of him being a viable candidate, which IMHO he is absolutely not. A minor bounce from being oversold, while potentially quite profitable, is not what one thinks of when you say he is "gaining traction".

Further, while it's completely subjective, cy you are the first person I've read to suggest that Hunter won the last debate. I"m sure it has nothing to do with your position/bias. lol. Similarly, the RP gang thinks RP won. Well, nearly every analysis of the hundreds I've read were of the opinion that Fred did very well, Romney excelled, and Huckabee held his own. I can't remember one that even mentioned Hunter, let alone thought he won.

As I suggested previously, you might want to stay away from extremely ideologically slanted sites like freerepublic. It reads like YouTube comments. You must bear in mind that those posters do not represent the majority of voters. They are a small minority on the fringe.

The beauty of Tradesports is that you get to put your money where your mouth is. It's ok tot alk about things, it passes the time, and makes one think (hopefully). But talk is cheap.

ko, I don't know how old you are, but you really need to learn to accept opinions that are different from yours without making all sorts of baseless and unfounded accusations. It's a very good thing when people disagree with you. It is a potential learning opportunity. I always listen very closely to those who take the other side of any of my trades - much mroe so than those who take the same side - be it in the securities markets (serious money) or Tradesports (entertainment/play money).

p.s. I have no idea who put that spam up, but obviously there are many "Anonymous" posters. It certainly was not me. Duh. I don't know why my username appears as Anonymous. It should read SLICKVGUY. I'm logged in correctly, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

GAW838 wrote:

Do you really have to accuse everyone who disagrees with you about Hunter of having some sort of agenda. Can't people just think you're wrong. You accused me of being a peanut gallery nay-sayer who is just out to keep the price down when I am actually long (albeit only 10 contracts) and would love to see it go high enough to be worth shorting.

Both of you are clearly Hunter supporters and Ko, you have so much as stated you have agenda to drive the price up.

Yes, I'm clearly a Hunter supporter who has been up front about it. My agenda in terms of hoping to see the price go up is manifold. For one, I hope to see some Hunter supporters put their money where their mouth is and make money at the same time. This is a unique thing in political history (aside from bribery). For another, I think Intrade and prediction markets are the future sources of political pundit data, better than polls. I've seen it for myself, noting that Huckster won in debates here and then the polls followed, seeing Obama beat Clinton in Iowa here and now we see it in the polls, seeing Ron Paul's historic fundraising day get greeted with a yawn here because his contracts had already risen, seeing Rudy take a fall on most of the primary contracts, which means that soon his poll numbers will drop, and so on and so on. This whole thing is fascinating. For a third reason, proceeding from my second, I consider Intrade results to be a legitimizer of a campaign. That's why Huckster started getting taken seriously, same with Ron Paul. I'm hoping the same will happen with Hunter.

I do not have to accuse everyone who agrees with me. It's the ones who follow the same template that I see on Free Republic that I instinctively sense they have some other kind of agenda. I appreciate folks like Delphi, who's a liberal, but she is up front about it. I've seen a whole lot of people say "I like Hunter, but" and after going round & round with them, it really turns out that they don't like Hunter for the same reasons that I do like him -- they disagree with him. So I tend to go into my sniff mode when I see the same kind of stuff on this forum that I've seen on a political forum.

Here's how I start seeing a hidden agenda: 1) questions do not get answered, but the ones that put their favored candidate in a positive light DO get answered. 2) nonsense in various forms 3) this is a forum for contracts prices and the discussion drifts away from that, with such sentiment as "Hunter has NO chance. NONE." That is beyond idiotic on a forum that seeks to separate people from their money, especially if they are in an irrational exuberance mode like Ron Paul followers. 4) The same tactics I see on political sites like FR, with standard fallacies being used such as ad hominem, straw argumentation, appeal to authority, etc.
5) I guess some basic instinct comes into play here.

slickvguy wrote:

ko - do you get paid per post? lol (j/k)

There are far too many things you said which range from somewhat intelligent to ridiculous to paranoid. ("holding water for Fred" - lmao). Keep in mind I'm Canadian - I'm not "holding water" for anyone. I'm not even long Fred. My only position currently is short the Field for NH. I follow US politics much more closely than most Americans (let alone Canadians). I've lived and worked in a few different states, and travelled throughout the USA.

I'll be breaking up my response because I just typed out a whole big response to your post and LOST all of it because Intrade logged me off. So this is the 2nd time I'm responding to you. It will be briefer than the first time.

No, I don't get paid per post. I'm just a political junkie. There's no way for me to know you were canadian when your monicker showed up as Anonymous.

slickvguy wrote:

... implies that he will make a LARGE move up in the polls ("next up"), just as Huckabee did. "next up" implies more than just a tradeable bump. It means he will become the next one in the spotlight, etc. I disagree strongly. I think the odds of that happening are ZERO. In fact, I still think that Romney could win Iowa. Huckabee is horrible. If the GOP is stupid enough to nominate him, they'll deserve what they'll get (i.e. big losses).

Cybear may have "implied" a large move but I never have. My whole analysis has been based on Hunter moving up to $4 on Intrade, matching his polling status. I agree that if the GOP nominates huckster, they'll lose big.

slickvguy wrote:

It's one thing to think the contract is undervalued, and play it for a bounce/trade. In that case, it may or may not be a good trade, but it's certainly within the range of possibilities. However, that is not what you guys meant. You both wrote about Hunter in terms of him being a viable candidate, which IMHO he is absolutely not. A minor bounce from being oversold, while potentially quite profitable, is not what one thinks of when you say he is "gaining traction".

I think Hunter's contract is undervalued until it hits $4 or $5. And that is exactly what I meant, that's also exactly and precisely what I've written. I do in my own Humble Opinion think that his candidacy is viable, but I'm aware that this is a minority view so I don't push it. A minor bounce from being oversold, while potentially quite profitable, is EXACTLY what I think of when you say he is "gaining traction".

slickvguy wrote:

Further, while it's completely subjective, cy you are the first person I've read to suggest that Hunter won the last debate. I"m sure it has nothing to do with your position/bias. lol. Similarly, the RP gang thinks RP won. Well, nearly every analysis of the hundreds I've read were of the opinion that Fred did very well, Romney excelled, and Huckabee held his own. I can't remember one that even mentioned Hunter, let alone thought he won.

The analysis I posted showing that Hunter won the debate was actually objective. It was based upon previous analyses of Intrade snapshots before & after debates and in those analyses I posted on Free Republic that the Huckster had won the debates. So that removes my own bias, because how many guys do you know who support one candidate and post up an analysis showing another candidate won? I was surprised to see huckster rise quickly in the polls after that (there's a BIG hint here: Intrade LEADS the polls). Proceeding from the same analysis I showed that Hunter won the last debate. And Hunter has his own set of detractors that seem to go out of their way to push him down, just check in at Free Republic and see for yourself. Now that you've read an unbiased analysis based upon Intrade results, one that proved prescient before, that should set the stage for the legitimacy of the analysis showing that Hunter WON the last debate.

slickvguy wrote:

As I suggested previously, you might want to stay away from extremely ideologically slanted sites like freerepublic. It reads like YouTube comments. You must bear in mind that those posters do not represent the majority of voters. They are a small minority on the fringe.

The beauty of Tradesports is that you get to put your money where your mouth is. It's ok tot alk about things, it passes the time, and makes one think (hopefully). But talk is cheap.

There's no need to repeat your suggestion. I know that FR is an idealogical niche -- that's one for Captain Obvious... If FR represents anything, it would be the social conservative slice of the GOP, but even that group is split right now.

I agree with you that the beauty of, ahem INTRADE, is just what you say, and furthermore a supporter can even make money by putting his money where his mouth is for his candidate. But what is your point?