New iPredict Stocks

iPredict has some new stocks. But before we go into them, I find interesting the movements in this stock:

This is Lead.Goff.09, which pays off if Goff is replaced as Leader in 2009.

Now I don’t think Goff is toast  in 2009 (2010 may be more interesting though) and in fact have short sold 350 shares against.

But the market has shifted the share price from around 11c, to almost 18c, which is a significant increase. This is obviously a reaction to the two TV polls.

Anyway to the new stocks:

1. Greens Leadership – Bradford is at 28c and Turei at 79c. That seems about right to me. Incidentially one could make asmall amount of money by selling both stocks (for 107c) and then buying one of them back at 100c when it closes. It is guaranteed money. But I’m not doing it as I’d think I can do better than a 7% return.
2. Three Strikes Bill – The market says there is a 70% chance National will vote for the three strikes law & order bill at its second reading. I would not want to invest in that stock until I get a feel of select committee hearings.
3. S92A Disconnects. This stock is on whether an Internet user will be disconnected under s92A by 1 Sep 2009. I have short sold 100 shares, indicating I don’t think any disconnections will occur by then. Current price is 30c.
4. UNDP.Clark is the stock on if Helen will get the top job. Current price is 60c, so investors think she has a pretty good chance. I’m not betting – yet.
5. Winston has two stocks – one on him remaining sole Leader of NZ First and one on him sharing the leadership. I’ve purchased both stocks? Why? Near guaranteed money. Winston as sole Leader is at 45c and Winston sharing leadership is 26c. You can buy both for 71c, and if one of them comes true, you get $1. The only way you won’t get paid out, is if Winston is not in any Leadership role at all by the end of 2009. There is a small chance of that but way less than 29%, I would say. Plus I’m happy to lose money if by doing so it means Winston has retired 🙂

I thought it might be interesting to look at the economic stocks for once. I don’t tend to focus on them so much as I am a better politician than I am an economist 🙂

But they are interesting as to what the market is expecting:

1. OCR – 98% say it will dip below 3.5% this year, and 94% say it will go below3.0%. Also at the March 12 RBNZ announcement, 50% are predicting a 100 point lowering, 19% 75 points, 13% 50 points, 2% 25 points and 16% say other – meaning zero or over 100.
2. Mortgage Rates – 95% say the floating mortgage rate will drop below 7.0%, 94% below 6.5%, 88% below 6.0%, and 81% below 5.5%. This is for June 2009. If they get that low I may start looking to buy property.
3. Inflation – for March 2009 the average price is 32c which means 3.2% predicted. June 2009 is 2.6% and Sep 2009 is 2.0%. So the market thinks inflaion is heading well down. Of course 1% is what we should be aiming for.
4. Unemployment – the predicted rate for March 2009 is 5.5%, June 2009 5.7% and Sept 2009 is 6.5%. Nasty.
5. Exchange Rate – predicting that in March 2009, NZ$ will be 52c against the US$.
6. GDP – 95% probability of negative growth in Dec 2008 quarter, 93% for Mar 2009, 73% for Jun 2009 and 63% for Sep 2009. Depressing – the majority view is that the recession will last at least two entire years.

What would be interesting is to see somewher how iPredict did on previous economic data – was the level immediately before release of the key stat, correct?