Put your money where your mouth is, or so goes the saying. If you believe Biden will win the Presidential Election in 2020, for example, why don’t you put money on it?
It turns out that thousands of people do just that. One of the premier markets for predicting outcomes, beyond the polls and aggregation sites (like fivethirtyeight.com) is PredictIt. It’s actually a fascinating site to keep your eye on, if for no other reason to be informed and come up with your own analysis.
Since Covid-19 has run the course of a concern, to an outbreak, to an epidemic, to finally a pandemic, the markets have significantly changed. The catalyst, I believe, is the otherwise world wide recognition that the United States’ government is being run by a buffoon. So let’s look at the charts.
In this graph, we see the last 90 days of Trump vs Biden. At the moment of this writing, Biden is at $.48 vs Trump’s $.44. Not huge confidence, but the upward trend is fairly amazing. Clearly, most of this had to do with the South Carolina results (and all the subsequent primaries), but Trump’s decline has more to do with his response to Covid-19.
This chart highlights current thinking (in the last 90 days) on whether Trump will win the popular vote. Anything below $.50 in my view predicts a very poor outlook.
Lastly, this graph highlights which party is predicted to win the Presidency. As I type, the Democratic Party is at $.56 and the Republican $.45 (I believe the chart rendering is slightly behind the market “tickers.”
There are many wonderful charts at PredictIt. Go take a look. You can see that there is a 77% chance of a US recession. Or that Kamala Harris is beating Klobuchar by 1% for VP at the moment. Or that there is only a 31% chance Sanders will drop out by March 20th.
Feel free to share more predictions in the comments.
Be careful out there everyone. Let’s take care of ourselves … and each other.