Auckland Mayor 2010

Who will be elected Mayor of Auckland in 2010?

We'll add an Other and make a bundle out of this some time down the road once potential candidates firm up



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2009 05:15AM by admin.

I sense an epic stock

Looking forward to this one!

At this point seems like people are quite hesistant judging by the low volume.

Is there even a confirmed list of candidates?

There's unlikely to be a confirmed list of candidates for at least a year.

I'd expect the first month or so of trading on this stock to be bargain-hunting. Once liquidity builds up, there'll be some serious predictions made.

What was with the spike in Paul Holmes to 50%+? Does he have an iPredict account (I'm sure if he did he'd rate himself to win the mayoralty easily!)?

This stock badly needs a bundle, it's out of control!

Just thinking out loud here ......

Could we make it a bundle with, say, fifteen stocks, and have some of them be 'TBA'?

MAYOR.MOORE
MAYOR.BROWN
MAYOR.HOLMES
... etc
MAYOR.TBA1
MAYOR.TBA2
MAYOR.TBA3
MAYOR.TBA4
MAYOR.TBA5
... and so on.

You wouldn't have the TBA stocks for sale, except in bundles. In the future their names would be changed as we learn who the new candidates are.

Or maybe you could have MAYOR.OTHER.A for any 'other' mayors with last names beginning with 'A', and MAYOR.OTHER.B for any 'other' mayors with last names beginning with 'B etc???

Honestly, I can't really see my ideas working, but I really want some way of getting a bundle here, without a catch-all OTHER that covers ten random candidates.

Although, I guess the MTA.WIN.OTHER covers about 12-13 'other' candidates. That's the harsh reality of iPredict. :-)

Can't believe how cheap BANKS is.

I love iPredict!

Yes we do need a bundle, I have shorted hundreds and the prices still add up to over $1.20!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2009 11:50PM by rocketman101.

It adds up to over $1.40 right now! Crazy....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/22/2009 12:07AM by rene_lp.

peteremcc Wrote:
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> Can't believe how cheap BANKS is.
>
> I love iPredict!

I think he's OP. Assuming there are a large number of candidates, assuming he runs for mayor and assuming its a supercity race......... i think the further out from Central you go the less support he will have.

If he got in I think it would be from low voter turn out (given the amount of publicity i think turnout will be above average) and from vote splitting.

Agree - if there is a vaguely decent other candidate then I don't see Bank's winning as comfortably as pricing here had assumed...he polarises Auckland City...those outside of Auckland City - the majority - will not want to a see an Auckland City mayor if they can help it. I wonder if any "celebrities" will put their names into the hat.

Welp, I shorted all of them in a heroic attempt to make the prices sensible, and now we really, REALLY need a bundle so I can cover!

I know the feeling. I shorted 200 of each of the top 5 stocks for a combined price of almost $1.50. I managed to buy some back though when prices droped to more reasonable levels.

I think the problem with running this type of stock without a bundle is people just buy who they think will win and so prices get too high.

There must be some way to fix the disproportionate cost of shorting stock. That's part of the reason why the price stays high ...

I can't think of any way as traders need to put up collaterial incase the stock closes at $1. Thats why I think stocks may be biased towards the middle. If a stock is at $0.90 it ties up a lot to buy it even if you think it is underpriced. If a stock is at $0.10 the same is true of shorting.

So if I see a stock that is less than 10 cents that I think is a little bit under priced I am more likely to buy it than a stock at over 90 cents that I think is a sure thing.

The asymmetry between shorting and buying is a wee bit of an illusion. Think of it like this:

Quote

A stock is trading at 5c, you short. $1 gets locked up, but you get 5c to play with. So you're 95c out. This net result is exactly the same as buying a stock that's trading at 95c.

There is an asymmetry when mutually-exclusive stocks are related: you might want to short lots of mutually-exclusive stocks when their prices are fairly low, but you'll never want to buy lots when their prices are high.

---

My suggestion (a modification of pipe's earlier post): a splitting stock.

Stock: MAYOR.OTHER.TBA
Say two candidates, X and Y, enter the field. When it's time to give them their own stocks, create MAYOR.X and MAYOR.Y, and close MAYOR.OTHER.TBA, paying out in MAYOR.X and MAYOR.Y stocks.

So if I have 200 MAYOR.OTHER.TBA stocks, when it's time to give X and Y their own stocks, OTHER.TBA closes, and I get 200 MAYOR.X stocks and 200 MAYOR.Y stocks (and presumably, 200 MAYOR.OTHER stocks.)

This allows immediate bundling.

Still trading around $1.30 for the lot of them.

Is a bundle coming soon?

For the record I agree with BKD - that shorting and buying are the same thing (just in reverse). My point is that in both cases there may be a bias towards 50 cents.

bkd, that is BRILLIANT!

A splitting stock would work perfectly for bundling this stock immediately.

Admin, how much effort would that take to implement?

Pipe: there is one issue, regarding what to do with people who've shorted the splitting stock—must they freeze more funds?

I've given it some thought and devised a unified approach, which I've taken the liberty of posting as a new topic over here.

Update: These stocks are still (collectively) massively overvalued, with buy prices adding up to 1.28 and sell prices adding up to 1.34.

I think accurate prices would be closer to 0.90 buy prices and 0.95 sell prices.

That's 29% overpriced by my estimation ... and I've shorted it up to my eyeballs already. Hence the need for a bundle.

BKD, that is very clever.

And actually the underlying system does theoretically support what you are suggesting. The system treats money as another asset, like a stock. The system is set to always use money as one of the two assets always being traded - but this is not hard wired in.

To be honest I think implementing what BKD is suggesting is not going to happen soon - getting the systems and checks pulled together would be a big deal.

Given the massive overpricing on the mayor stocks I think it is likely a bundle will have to be introduced. I am surprised liquidity can introduce so much bias into pricing.

Update 2: After a dip yesterday morning to 1.13 buy prices and 1.17 sell prices, the MAYOR stocks rebounded to buy prices of 1.18 and sell prices of 1.23.

Good grief.

mmm should be shorting in anticipation of a bundle....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2009 10:16AM by top_shot.

top_shot Wrote:
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> mmm should be shorting in anticipation of a
> bundle....


I think it just has to be that way.

How does this happen? Before people buy them, don't they realise that they are over priced, even if there is not OTHER to benchmark against? Does that make sense?
Dam out of cash now

Wow, until I read this I thought I was a smartypants for shorting the lot of them at 1.11. These contracts desperately need a bundle.