New Posts
By:
Filters
  • Hi there guest! Welcome to PoliticalJack.com. Register for free to join our community?

PredictIt

Arkady said:
Clearly not. I was simply and clearly stating what the market is telling us. That doesn't mean the market is necessarily correct. If you think it's wrong, this is a buying opportunity and you can put your money where your mouth is by buying whichever share you think is under-valued relative to the real probable outcome. It's possible that this market isn't very good at predicting, especially if you're right about how small the market is. So, you have an opportunity. For my own part, though, I think the market's likely to be a fairly good appraisal of actual probabilities, so it would be dodgy for me to try to substitute my judgement and wager my money on the market being wrong one way or the other.
Click to expand...

But the point is that the "market," in this case, isn't "telling us" probabilities, as you implied. These things have a pretty good track record, but only just before the election. This far out there's just too many variables for such a guessing system to have much predictive value. It's really just people betting on the news flow.

So perhaps you just got carried away and didn't intend to mislead anyone by referring to these "odds" as "probabilities." But if that is the case you should just apologize and move on, not insist you didn't do it when it's right there for everyone to see.
 
Lukey said:
But the point is that the "market," in this case, isn't "telling us" probabilities, as you implied. These things have a pretty good track record, but only just before the election. This far out there's just too many variables for such a guessing system to have much predictive value. It's really just people betting on the news flow.

So perhaps you just got carried away and didn't intend to mislead anyone by referring to these "odds" as "probabilities." But if that is the case you should just apologize and move on, not insist you didn't do it when it's right there for everyone to see.
Click to expand...

But he didn't say "actual" probabilities. I read through this clear beating you gave him yesterday, wasn't that about the best defense he could come up with?
 
The Thinker said:
But he didn't say "actual" probabilities. I read through this clear beating you gave him yesterday, wasn't that about the best defense he could come up with?
Click to expand...

Actually he did:

The likelihood of a Democratic landslide for the White House is 40%, versus 12% for a GOP landslide. The probability is 63% that the GOP will lose the Senate. The probability of undivided Democratic government is only 18%.

He implied these market "predictions" indicate "probabilities" when they are certainly no moreso than my guess that the stock market will be 1000 points higher or lower in the same timeframe.
 
The Thinker said:
I agree with that. In my stock and futures trading travels, I read a good dozen or so books. Most of them had "systems" that proved their validity by back testing. All you had to do was follow these system rules for trading, and you'd be a multimillionaire in a few years- starting with just $10,000. Funny though, they didn't talk about how their system worked AFTER the author came up with it. Frankly, if I came up with a system like that, I'd be too busy piling up cash and traveling the world on the profits to bother writing a a silly book that might sell what a few tens of thousands, MAYBE 100,000 if you're lucky? Perhaps two of the ten books I read were honestly educational and realistic.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I was thinking of. Back in the early 2000s, I had these reams of data I'd put into Excel and I was crunching the numbers in all sorts of ways to try to come up with my own stock investment model. I figured any published model would already be used so widely that it would lose effectiveness, since any "bargains" would be snapped up immediately. But, if I could come up with something proprietary and keep it a secret, I could profit on it indefinitely. I found out that it was child's play to come up with a model that absolutely slayed past markets. I could spend three hours randomly shooting in the dark, coming up with hundreds of formulas, and simply pick whichever formula got the best return against past markets. But, no matter how much my formulas kicked the world's ass in back-testing, they wound up having little predictive power. It was the bulls-eye fallacy.

Just to simplify greatly, picture something where you check how the DOW stock with the highest P/E ratio has performed relative to the DOW stocks in general over the last 50 years. There's no real chance of them being identical -- chances are, it either did better or worse -- and probably significantly so. If it did better, then you could simply buy that stock and expect to out-perform the DOW. Or if it did worse, you could buy all the DOW stocks EXCEPT that one and expect to outperform the DOW. Back-testing the strategy would suggest you'd have a good return. But that's just because you built the strategy based on the old data. Chances are that going forward you'll just be tossing the dice.
 
Arkady said:
It only makes sense to play Predictit if you think it's WRONG. If the collective wisdom of the market has mis-priced those shares relative to the actual probability of the outcome, then one or the other share is a bargain and a person should buy it. But if the collective wisdom has priced the shares pretty close to their real value based on probability of outcome, then there's no point buying them, since they're worth more or less what they'd cost to acquire. I see no reason to think Predictit has it wrong by much, so my money would be better put into stocks or some other vehicle with fundamental intrinsic value. But, for those who think those prices don't reflect real probabilities, this is a buying opportunity. So, will you put your money where your mouth is?
Click to expand...
you misunderstand Predic-tit in the same way most lefties misunderstand equities markets in general.

you make money in predict-it if you think a candidate is "under valued". If trump is at "48" and you think he has a clear shot at the nomination, you buy him, because he will go up between now and the convention.

this is the same reason to buy a stock. Because you think someone's product is unique, and will continue to sell well. the companies market share will increase, as well as profits, dividends, and share price.
 
as seen on tv said:
you misunderstand Predic-tit in the same way most lefties misunderstand equities markets in general.
Click to expand...

What makes you think that? What I just posted is consistent with what you said -- that you buy if you think the candidate is under-valued. Which part of what I wrote did you misinterpret as being at odds with that notion? It seems you were the one who misunderstood, since you demanded to know whether I'd put my money where my mouth is, when obviously the only reason I'd buy into the political prediction market is if I thought those shares were substantially mis-priced relative to the actual probabilities. It makes sense to ask those who don't think the prices reflect the actual probabilities why they're not taking advantage of that by buying the undervalued shares, but it doesn't make sense to demand that of someone whose post implies that he thinks the real probabilities are close to the prices.
 
Arkady said:
What makes you think that? What I just posted is consistent with what you said -- that you buy if you think the candidate is under-valued. Which part of what I wrote did you misinterpret as being at odds with that notion? It seems you were the one who misunderstood, since you demanded to know whether I'd put my money where my mouth is, when obviously the only reason I'd buy into the political prediction market is if I thought those shares were substantially mis-priced relative to the actual probabilities. It makes sense to ask those who don't think the prices reflect the actual probabilities why they're not taking advantage of that by buying the undervalued shares, but it doesn't make sense to demand that of someone whose post implies that he thinks the real probabilities are close to the prices.
Click to expand...

For the simple reason that there are no underlying "probabilities" - only complete guesses. If I think my guess is better than what the collective "market" guess is, I would trade accordingly. I'm willing to gamble (poker mostly) when there ARE underlying probabilities involved (because I can do the math). There's no "math" to be done here. It's like betting on sports, and anyone who thinks that is a good way to get rich is a fool...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top