SMARTCROWD

America's Cup: Update

Swiss yacht Alinghi is now just one win way from defending the America's Cup following its win in Race 6 over New Zealand's Emirates Team earlier today.

At Tradesports, Alinghi jumped more than 20 percentage points to 88, while Emirates dropped a similar amount to just 12.5.

The Kiwis are in trouble and now need a small miracle to win, after Alinghi notched up its third win in a row to lead 4-2, in the best of nine Match series. The Guardian described it well Teams try to stay focused as the end of the America's Cup looms. It could be all over tomorrow, Sunday, if the Swiss team wins, making it the first European team to defend the trophy. More news, here.

From the crew at SMARTCROWD

SMARTCROWD Update: Election '08

What's new in the prediction markets?

Michael Bloomberg got plenty of media coverage this week.

Even though Bloomberg continues to say he’s not running in ’08, the media continues to speculate after he dropped his Republican Party affiliation to register as an independent. Here’s how the FT covered it "Bloomberg hints at run for President" on Wednesday. The Economist reported “New York’s mayor flirts with an independent bid for the presidency”, while today, The New York Times ran the front page article “President? or Kingmaker?”; note, now behind NYT's subscription page. The prediction markets covering "Bloomberg to run as an Independent" responded by marking Bloomberg up. Inkling Markets moved the New York Mayor up to 47.8%, while over at Intrade, the probability rating was 45.3%, having reached a high of 50%.

Democrats

Hillary Clinton has cemented her lead as the likely Democratic nominee. The SMARTCROWD Index for Clinton to become "the Democratic Party nominee" now stands at 47.51%. Barack Obama has slipped slightly in the same markets, with a SMARTCROWD Index rating just below 30%, on a single point spread, demonstrating a consistent view across the markets we’re monitoring. Both candidates continue to command considerable coverage. The Economist ran this heading "Disliked, but still most likely" in the Lexington article Pillorying Hillary. The FT summed up Obama’s predicament, like this "Obama tries harder, but still No.2". John Edwards’ campaign is slipping, if you believe the ratings across the various prediction markets.

GOP

In the GOP race, according to the prediction markets, Fred Thompson and Rudi Giulliani are neck and neck with SMARTCROWD Index ratings of 27.96% and 27.03% respectively. There’s still plenty to fight for in this race….. Mitt Romney runs third with 21%, while John McCain, who has slipped significantly in recent weeks, is now just 13.6%. The polling group Angus Reid Global Monitor has similar findings.

General

Ratings for a GOP President in 2008 stand at 40% and 58% for a Democrat President.

For the latest SMARTCROWD Index ratings for the leading GOP and DEM candidates <click here>.

That's it for this week!

From the crew at SMARTCROWD

Election '08: SMARTCROWD Update

The Democrat and Republican nominees each participated in another round of debates this week.

Here's how the UK's Guardian newspaper covered the Democrat's debate, while Forbes covered it in a more serious tone.

Here's how TheStreet.com reported the Republican debate, while the Washington Post ran this article "GOP hopefuls keep distance from Bush"

SMARTCROWD Index

The SMARTCROWD Probability Index calculations currently *stand at:

Clinton DEM Nom. 41.73%, up 1.5%
Obama DEM Nom, 34.34%, unchanged**
Edwards DEM Nom, 9.04%, down 1.6%
Guilliani, GOP Nom, 26.22%, unchanged**
McCain, GOP Nom, 20.05%, down 1.7%
Romney, GOP Nom, 23.32%, up 0.5%
Thompson (F), GOP Nom, 22.32% (first rating)

DEM Pres, 59%, unchanged
GOP Pres, 41%, unchanged

Spreads

Going forward, SMARTCROWD will periodically publish spread calculations. The spread calculation measures the gap between the lowest and highest probability ratings across the various markets that make up the SMARTCROWD Index. The lower the spread calculation, the closer prices correlate across the various markets. This is generally a good indication of a solid price/probability rating. The larger the spread the greater the pricing anomoly. This is one reason we created an index in the first place.

A large spread does not automatially mean prices are being artificially pumped or dumped in any particular market. It could mean that one market is better informed than the others. Such discrepancies definitely arise when comparing play money markets (even where they have many hundred people participating) against real money markets, since play money markets often apply relatively higher ratings across a broader range of contracts in that market.

The opening SMARTCROWD Spreads currently* stand as follows (please note spreads change constantly with changes in prices/probabilities in the underlying prediction markets):

Clinton DEM Nom, Spread 14 pts, WSX/IEM @ 51.5% vs Inkling @ 37.5% (1.8 pts in "for-money" markets)
Obama DEM Nom, Spread 24.5 pts, WSX @ 54.98% vs Intrade @ 30.4% (1 pt)
Edwards DEM Nom, Spread 15 pts, WSX @ 21.42% vs Intrade @ 6.1% (0.6 pt)
Guilliani GOP Nom, Spread 23.5 pts, WSX @43.78% vs IEM @ 20.3% (4.3 pts)
Romney GOP Nom, Spread 32.5 pts, WSX @ 42.56% vs Inkling @10.1% (0.7 pt)
McCain GOP, Spread 21.3 pts, WSX @ 34.3 vs IEM @ 13% (0.5 pt)
Thompson GOP, Spread 9.9 pts, Intrade @ 27.9% vs Inkling @ 18% (n/a)

DEM President, Spread 11.6 pts, Newsfutures @ 52% vs Inkling @ 63.6% (5.5 pts)
GOP President, Spread 13.2 pts, Newsfutures @ 48% vs Inkling @ 34.8% (1.9 pts)

Other news and data

Thanks to techPresident for the link to OpenSecrets.Org. OpenSecrets.Org offers a rich source of data; for example, it sets out each candidate's funding and spending. It also includes a neat little application called MoneyWeb which shows where each candidate's political donations come from and who else their donor's have contributed to. It has a neat graphical interface.

CNN's web coverage of Election '08 continues to make great strides. Here's a link to CNN's Political Ticker, which provides daily updates of events. Its a useful way to keep in touch with what the candidates are doing. CNN's Election Center is also a good source of information for those who need a quick view of the latest news and insights.

Charts

There are no comparative charts this week, thanks to a fried hard drive which holds our historic data! Please be patient while our state-of-the-art back-up systems grind into action.

We can expect plenty of action in the markets over the coming weeks as the campaigns crank into third gear.

From the crew at SMARTCROWD.

* source data collected at 12:15pm June 9th, 2007
** less than an 0.20% movement

Instant messaging with video...

Here's some very cool technology from Meebo.  We'll be experimenting with it here at SMARTCROWD over the next few months.  Meebo is an excellent way to instant message and share video and URLs. Participation is welcome. You can copy "the room" to other websites and blogs. So, it's a very open application. (Please note: SMARTCROWD is not responsible for videos, websites, or any text messages posted through this application by third parties).