iPredict this week

My iPredict column:

Whanganui

Does someone out there know something about the outcome of the name for Wanganui City? CITY.BOTH pays out $1 if both Wanganui and Whanganui are declared official names (like Aoraki and Mt Cook). The stock had been at 15c for around six weeks and on Monday started to shoot up to 24c, where it is now today.

Turnbull gone

Malcolm Turnbull lost the leadership of the Australian Liberal Party 41-42, making traders in AUS.TURNBULL very happy. The history of the stock has been interesting – at 40c to 50c up until late November. Then on Friday 27 Nov it went up to 76c. The price then dropped back later in the day to 63c before settling down at 72c. On Monday it climbed to 91c, but dropped back to finish the day at 84c. And then on the day of the leadership vote it traded back at 91c, until the result came out, giving some people a nice quick profit.

Does Brown have momentum?

MAYOR.BROWN will pay out if Len Brown wins Auckland’s top job in 2010. He has been at 30c for around three months and dropped away to 22c on the 15th of November. The stock recovered to 26c and then on the Friday the 27th of November spiked up to 52c. Someone seems confident of Brown. The price has now dropped back but is stable at 34c, up a bit from where it used to be.

Nats thrive in tough times

PM.2011.NATIONAL has been at 66c for some time. Possibly someone heard the Colmar Brunton poll results early as on Saturday it went up to 69c, and since then hit 72c on Monday. This seems to reflect sentiment that if Labour can’t close the gap despite the tough times, the next election is looking safer for National.

Most Traded Stocks

AUS.TURNBULL topped the market with $12,700 of trades. The CONFNOV09 stocks had $16,000 of trades between them, and then the petrol stocks at $6,400.

Cheers,

David

Disclosure

David’s current iPredict positions are:

BROWN.RESIGN Short, CITY.WHANGANUI Long, 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, OBAMA.DISAP.1MAR 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: CITY.BOTH, AUS.TURNBULL, MAYOR.BROWN, PM.2011.NATIONAL, AUS.TURNBULL