Bob Parker to be re-elected mayor of Christchurch

@Manonthecliff

Has Banks Peninsula ever voted for incumbency?

TraderV Wrote:
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> @Manonthecliff
>
> Has Banks Peninsula ever voted for incumbency?

I have no idea.

I have a "legacy" Anderton position from pre-Quake. As much as I'd like to shill up his prospects, I do post here under my real name.

ECrampton Wrote:
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>As much as I'd like to shill up his
> prospects, I do post here under my real name.

I'm not sure how that improves or hinders the trading prospects of Mr Anderton's contracts, but I'll watch with interest. I hope it works for you.

Oh, nothing's going to work for me on these contracts. I'm massively down, internet having died for me the day of the quake and me being stuck with a big Anderton position bought closer to 90 cents. Sigh.

Wow... who wants 500 Anderton stocks for 8c?

The guy who just bought them from me does.

Does anybody have any expertise with the margins of error in these sample polls?
As far as I can tell they seem to be ignored.
If we're talking a 5.2% margin of error doesn't that mean, on that last poll report, of Parker 55%/Anderton 41%, that the actual voting preferences could be anywhere from 56%-50% for Parker & 46%-36% for Anderton?

That leaves a possible weighting of Parker 50%-Anderton 46% which hardly seems to warrant the despair that seems to be abroad among Anderton backers.

Can the statisticians among us confirm or discount that ?

And before anybody takes that as an invitation to offer me vast numbers of Anderton stocks in some proof of belief, let me say I settled on my position some weeks ago and nothing I've seen to date inclines me to alter it.
That doesn't mean I'm not interested in sifting truth from chaff.

ManontheCliff Wrote:
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> 50%-Anderton 46% which hardly seems to warrant the

Or 56/36 at the other extreme, whichever way you look at it, Anderton isn't on winning form in that poll, there is no prize for second place. As much as I want Parker to lose personally, I just can't see it happening, and neither it seems, can the collective iPredict traders.

@ManontheCliff

Interpreting these things can get tricky if you want to extract all the insight possible out of a poll, especially in races somewhat tighter than this. Here's a (rather conservative) shorthand way to use polls' "margins of error" to estimate probabilities. It's not perfect—it'll make you put down too many races as "too close to call"—, but it won't lead you to misinterpret a poll when you're calling one way or the other in a two-horse race.

You won't go far wrong in treating the reported "margin of error" as the half-width of a 95%-confidence interval.

The poll had "margin of error" at 5.2 percentage-points, Parker at 55%. The safe way to interpret is this is
* we're 95% "sure" that Parker's vote-share is in the range 49.8%–60.2%
* there's a 2.5% chance Parker is below 49.8%
* there's a 2.5% chance Parker is above 60.2%.

Likewise, we're 95% "sure" Anderton is in the range 35.8%–46.2%.

Since the bands don't overlap, poll interpretation is easy: there's a 97.5% (or higher) chance that Parker is truly ahead.

This assumes the poll is worth a damn in the first place, and also assumes that third-candidates' preferences won't mess with things too much (if we knew that Anderton was voted above Parker by all people who didn't give Parker first preference, things get messy, as Parker's band includes the magic 50% mark).

EDIT: Ignore that last bit. Apparently the Christchurch Mayoral election is FPP. Thanks sleemanj, for the correction.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2010 06:25AM by bkd.

bkd Wrote:
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> (if we
> knew that Anderton was voted above Parker by all
> people who didn't give Parker first preference,
> things get messy, as Parker's band includes the
> magic 50% mark).


I might be misunderstanding you here, but the CHCH Mayoral vote is FPP

Fantastic. Thanks bkd.
Thanks also Sleemanj for the important clarification.

On a slightly different note, interesting to note that while the polls reported have been sufficient to drive Parker & Brown stocks into the high 80's/90's, they appear to be wholly discounted in the Dunedin mayoralty with someone determined that Chin warrants a price in the 70's despite coming out in 2nd place in the latest reported poll.

ManontheCliff Wrote:
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> On a slightly different note, interesting to note
> that while the polls reported have been sufficient
> to drive Parker & Brown stocks into the high
> 80's/90's, they appear to be wholly discounted in
> the Dunedin mayoralty with someone determined that
> Chin warrants a price in the 70's despite coming
> out in 2nd place in the latest reported poll.


Yeah I agree.. its crazy and I have been shorting as much as my funds will allow over the last week.

30c risk for $1 return.. totally worth it considering he was behind in most recent poll!!

I think the resistance in Chin is probably due to it being "unexpected".

Everybody (sensible) expects that Parker and Brown would be on top in recent polls, and eventually win, but I think that Chin was not expected to be down so maybe people are discounting the poll as "unlikely to be accurate".

I've shorted some Chin, and may do a bit more, but I don't think I'd be confident to do a lot of it, or see it through to a result.

Chin got in last time because the anti-Chin elements were disparate and many of them just downright flaky. I don't think the same applies in 2010, and I suspect the grey bunker growing on the waterfront is more of a stimulant to vote to those it annoys than to those happy with it.
We shall see what we shall see.

There is precious little real information to go on, but what there is is consistent with what I would have anticipated, so my money will stay where it has been the past month - information I'm happy to share since I've got no cash available to short more contracts, and don't anticipate buying cover. What happens to the prices betwixt then and now is academic for my purposes.

Thanks Bob, i stuck with you, but i did chicken out on buying too many when price dropped to 10c, i decided 1200 plus was enough.

shatec Wrote:
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> Thanks Bob, i stuck with you, but i did chicken
> out on buying too many when price dropped to 10c,
> i decided 1200 plus was enough.


Bob and his supporters might think he is so great the earth moves just for him, but plate tectonics is the more likely explanation.

I wish I had bought more than I did at 7c.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2010 05:36AM by TraderV.

According to the progress result, 68, 245 votes were received for Bob Parker.

His closest rival, Jim Anderton, received 51, 566 votes, a difference of 16, 679.

[www.stuff.co.nz]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2010 12:54AM by sleemanj.

Closed now. Thanks all for the insights you've provided here - especially the post quake response, which was absolutely fascinating.