My final column for the year:

Brown to fight 2010 election

BROWN.RESIGN pays out $1 if UK PM Gordon Brown loses his job before the 2010 general election. With rumours that a date of March has been set for the election, it seems clear that Brown will be the Labour Leader and PM until the election.

The share price was 30c on 19 November and has fallen in the last few weeks to 10c.

But will Annette King fight 2011?

DEP.KING.2010 pays out $1 if Annette King is replaced as the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party by the end of 2010.

The price has been at 30c for several weeks but in the last few days has increased to 37c.

King has ruled out standing for Mayor of Wellington, but politicians can change their minds. I tend to think the stock is over-priced. King is popular in the caucus, and any change in Deputy Leader would be seen as destabilising Goff’s leadership. I’m definitely going to start short selling the stock if it goes any higher.

Len Brown’s stocks up

A UMR poll showed Len Brown ahead of John Banks in response to the question of who would be the better Mayor (which is not the same as asking who would you vote for). This has pushed his MAYOR.BROWN prices from the 30c average of recent months to a leading 45c. I think this is a bit optimistic at this stage. I purchased some Brown stocks early on for 15c as they were under valued at that price. At 45c I am very close to selling them.

And the other Mayors

Three new stocks on the chances of Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin, Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker and Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast being re-elected next year.

MAYOR.CHIN is at 79c but this has had only 16 shares traded. I would have thought the Dunedin Stadium protest would have his price somewhat lower.

MAYOR.PARKER is at 88c. Also light trading with only 33 shares traded. While there has been some controversy over certain property deals and decisions, there does not appear to be a credible challenger.

MAYOR.PREDERGAST is at 68c, after initially selling at 80c. Mayor Kerry has yet to confirm she will stand again, so the price seems about right. It is hard to see one current Councillor beating her, and a “celebrity” challenger seems unlikely. However the wild card factor is the team Bob Jones wants to put up to implement a vehicle free Courtenay Place to Lambton Quay. Will Kerry be part of that team or against that team?

Whanganui/Wanganui

The iPredict market beat the NZ Herald by a few hours in predicting Maurice Williamson would today announce that both Wanganui and Whanganui would be official names for the city. CITY.BOTH went up from 25c to 75c before dropping again to 50c. Then after the Herald story, it has increased again to 89c.

Most Traded Stocks

The December petrol price stocks are leading with over 38,000 shares traded. Next was the Manners Malls bus stock with almost 6,000 shares traded in the last week. In third place is the April 2010 OCR stock at 4,600 trades and the 2010 Goff departure stock on 3,700 trades.