Sugar Momma? Did You Buy John a Lead on Intrade?
Congressional Quarterly confirms something Nate Silver pointed out some time ago. Someone has been trying to game the online market Intrade to make it look like John McCain was winning.
An internal investigation by the popular online market Intrade has revealed that a single investor’s purchases prompted “unusual” price swings that significantly boosted the prediction that Sen. John McCain will become president.
Over the past several weeks, the investor has pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars into one of Intrade’s predictive markets for the presidential election, the company said, resulting in repeated monetary losses through a strategy that belies any financial motive.
“The trading that caused the unusual price movements and discrepancies was principally due to a single ‘institutional’ member on Intrade,” said the company’s chief executive, John Delaney, in a statement released Thursday. “We have been in contact with the firm on a number of occasions. I have spoken to those involved personally.”
After an extensive investigation into the suspicious trading patterns, Intrade found no wrongdoing or violation of its exchange rules, the company said. [my emphasis]
CQ goes on at some length to explain what a stupid "investor" this person was and how much money she (or he) wasted telegraphing to other investors when she (or he) would be dumping large sums into the market and paying extra because she (or he) invested exclusively in this market. Whoever was doing the market manipulation, CQ concluded, had to be trying to influence appearances, not make a buck.
So who would dump money on a transparent (well, at least to Nate Silver) attempt to make John McCain look more successful than he was?
Honestly, there’s absolutely no reason to think it really was McCain’s Sugar Momma buying off the market. This person is, for the moment at least, just an anonymous someone willing to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into make the failing McCain campaign look better. Though Intrade completely discredits itself as a market by refusing to state whether McCain’s fan was associated with his campaign.
Citing privacy policies, Delaney would not elaborate on who the investor was or whether or not that investor was affiliated in any way with a political campaign. [my emphasis]
But just so you know, Intrade still wants you to believe that they’re "generally more accurate" than polls.
Intrade. Where all the fashionable trophy wives go to buy their men a lead.
I gotta tell you that I started worrying when Obama’s Intrade dropped below McCain’e (albeit for a short time). Nate’s explanation made it clear. Today, Obama is better than 5 to 1 over McCain on Intrade.
I think that, as with any electoral victory prediction, Intrade must be taken with a grain of salt. That said, I love their state by state projections that show Obama trouncing McCain.
this doesn’t sound like “a person” to me, it sounds like an organization that is spending money not theirs
in other words, the rnc, this would be a fair investment since they could get re-imbersed for local elections if mccain looked strong in the general
Sure. Or it could be the Helmsly distributor company. Or whatever private investment counselor she works with.
Note, this person was not fluffing Republican numbers. Just McCain’s numbers.
well whoever it is can’t afford to lose THAT much money
Right – “single ‘institutional’ member”. Someone is hiding behind a brokerage organization, etc., but it all comes out the same.
Why not Rex Tillerson? Heck, we could start a rumor it was al Qaeda. UH, hey NSA guys, I know your reading this, it’s just a joke really. Oh wait, you probably already know who was doing this. Why don’t you drop and tell us?
Yeah. It actually really fries my butt that Intrade won’t confirm or deny his player has ties to McCain. The takeaway from this OUGHT to be “Intrade is a complete hoax.”
I have been rather disappointed, to say the least, with some of the things Cindy has said out on the trail; this cannot be her though, she just isn’t that stupid. Hensley Co. has actually been run pretty darn well by her, and she makes the big calls there, so i don’t think there is any chance it is them either. You do have to wonder just who the hell would do something so frivolous and insane, but I just cannot believe it is Cindy or Hensley. They have enough losses on McCain already.
This was so inefficient (short-term organic bounceback, restricted to intrade rather than all markets) that it had to have been “organized” by the McCain campaign.
It would be interesting to go back and see if anyone from the campaign was pointing to intrade as “McCain gains” in blogs or press discussions during that time.
I am wondering if the buys might be considered “advertising” and subject to FEC rules?
hilarious! intrade would be in no position to release info as to who it was as they would have confidentially rules of some sort too… the answer is appears fairly straightforward however convoluted these same people have worked to conceal it…
If the trades were not made for financial purposes, they were made for another purpose. The only other purpose here is to influence the election, promoting McCain’s chances by making it appear that gambling statisticians predict his win. That’s not “issues oriented” advocacy, to which 527’s are limited; it’s advocacy specifically in support of McCain’s win. This use of money should constitute a political donation, not a “financial investment”, and be governed by applicable disclosure rules and spending limits governing this Deep-Throated source.
As for Intratrade’s claim that its “privacy rules” prohibit disclosing the identity of this market manipulator, why do they apply to someone trying to corner the market? Intratrade’s actions seem self-immolating. Its business, the “credibility” of its published odds, depends on avoiding, culling out, this sort of manipulation. Which suggests that the “anonymous” player that manipulated McCain’s chances of winning manipulated Intratrade’s management. I wonder if that was handing out cash under the table or something more creative than crude manipulation of the odds? How long would a casino in Vegas be in business if it allowed a player to manipulate its tables, then claimed that its privacy rules prevented telling other players who helped them incur losses?
Whose hallmark does this manipulation bear? It’s open, from a single source, making it desperate and unprincipled. It harms Intratrade’s business, making it wasteful and punitive to the cut-out, the public and the candidate it seeks to benefit. So it was done without thinking ahead. Intratrade is still protecting its source, at considerable risk to its business, which puts it on the wrong end of an abusive relationship built on dominance.
Is it Rove and his acolytes or the RNC? It would be their style to invent dozens of such collateral attacks, previously untried because unthinkable, to persuade a duped electorate that their man “won”, now something of a GOP family business. But it seems crude even by Rovian standards. It looks most like something St. John himself would do, Lady St. John really, since she’s the only one in the family with that much money to lose.
Isn’t this of the same species as push-polling and voter-caging? Seems to me it is the very same. I expect these shenanigans continue as the story above drifts into the darkness.
If it is an “institutional investor” wouldn’t there be a fiduciary responsibility to the others who are involved within the firm to take action against speculative transactions that are nepotistic. Unless of course there was some sort of potential economic payoff to building the probability of the one “gambled upon” actually winning.
Or perhaps there are some sub-investments occurring on the side?
intrade, more accurate than the polls ???
what a fucking joke
intrade is about as accurate as a lou dobbs on-line poll
sounds like the people making money on intrade just landed a whale
I’ve been asking this unanswered question the past few days: If McCain wins, do we say that the polls were just wrong, or do we take that as evidence of foul play? And what do we do then?
Looks like the work of somebody 1) too stupid (or young) to realize we’d notice; 2) with access to an open line of credit on a credit card.
Megan? Is that you with Mommy’s AmEx Centurion card?