BUY OF THE WEEK

OBAMA.DISAP.1MAR pays out $1 if at 1 March 2010, President Obama has a net negative approval rating, according to Real Clear Politics. His rating has fallen from +12% in September to +5% in November and now sits at just +4%. The price has gone up from 22c in early November to 34c over the weekend.

I was short on this stock, but have just purchased stock to cover myself, as I think this stock will increase in value.

SELL OF THE WEEK

UK2010.CON.ABS pays out $1 if the Conservatives win an absolute majority of seats in the 2010 general election. The stock is trading at 67c but pundits may not know that the Conservatives probably have to beat Labour by at least 10% to win an absolute majority and several polls in November had them dip under a 10% lead.

For now this stick is over-priced.

MMP

MMP.RETAIN is at 57c. Every poll out in the last month has shown retaining MMP to have a significant lead, and it is hard to see this changing greatly before the election – at least while we have a relatively stable MMP Government. So I think this stock is a but under priced.

AN EASY RETURN

SNAP.ELECTION.10 pays out $1 if there is a snap election next year. I think there is no realistic chance of this happening and the current price of 11c means a 12% return over a year.

NO WAY BACK

MP.TIZARD has fallen to 17c, presumably on the back of Lynne Pillay announcing she will retire but not until 2011. MP.POWELL remains high at 57c.

IS GOFF A GONER?

DEP.GOFF.2010 pays out $1 if Goff loses the Labour Party leadership in 2010. The price was 19c on 28 November and has risen to 32c on Monday.

MOST TRADED STOCK

AUS.TURNBULL topped the trades at $7,500. Next was the Reserve Bank of Australia stocks on $3,500.

Cheers,

David

Disclosure

David’s current iPredict positions are:

BROWN.RESIGN Short, DEP.GOFF.2010 Short, DEP.KING.2010 Short, DL.KING.09 Short, FASA04.REPEAL Short, GST.UP.JULY10 Short, LEAD.GOFF.09 Short, MAYOR.BROWN Long, MIN.DEPART2.09 Short, MP.ANDERTON Short, MP.PETERS.2011 Short, NAT.JAN10.VLOW Short, NAT.MAORI.09 Short, OCR.INCR.APR10 Short, OCR.INCR.JAN10 Short, OCR.INCR.JUL10 Short, PETERS.LEADER Long, PM.2011.NATIONAL Long, UK2010.CON.ABS Long, UK2010.CON.MAJ Short, ZIM.MUGABE Short

Links to stocks in this commentary: OBAMA.DISAP.1MAR, UK2010.CON.ABS, MMP.RETAIN, SNAP.ELECTION.10, MP.TIZARD, MP.POWELL, DEP.GOFF.2010 , AUS.TURNBULL