And then we have the artificial pricing of Truth Social/Trump Media...
I saw a headline claiming a 12% jump in prices today based on
?speculation? or aspirational ideation...
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/04/2024-elections-live-coverage-updates-analysis/truth-social-00187158
I don't take this enthusiasm/appetite for DJT stock as an actual
indicator for his likely success in the election, just for the headiness
in his cult following.
On 11/4/24 2:22 PM, glen wrote:
Yeah, one explanation for manipulating the market in Trump's favor is
to provide evidence for the coming election challenges/lawsuits. I've
heard some talking heads suggest that much of the polling is done just
to argue for a red wave. And those are purposefully biased toward
Trump to help with the challenges.
w.r.t. free markets: I agree. I don't think such a thing exists. But
there is some freedom in there. It's a bit like information, I guess,
where one might say that a random thing has more information than an
ordered thing. The justification for markets, as I understand it, is
to manage uncertainty. If you're completely ignorant of some referent
process, an *open* market helps incorporate and reduce a bunch of
[non]sense into something actionable. So (hearkening back to Nick's
question) if you feel you must act prior to any rational result, a
market is a way to facilitate that. But if you think you have low
uncertainty, a preponderance of justified signals, the market for that
should lose its freedom.
But that argument implies that I would have to answer "yes" to my 1st
question. The market would "have" more information than the polls. And
even though I'm using my own argument, here, I'm not sure I believe
that conclusion ... it feels more like the markets have different
information than the polls. I'm just too ignorant to have an idea of
what that information is for each.
Anyway, yeah, I hold some Ada for the same reason you do ... just to
keep me aware. It's the same reason I hold tiny bits of stock in Evil
organizations like Wells Fargo et al, not for the investment, just to
keep up. As fun as it is, reading https://www.citationneeded.news/
isn't adequate. But with the Kalshi, I've made the prediction Harris
will win exactly twice, now, once to some Canadian lesbians we met at
a pub in Glasgow and once to a lefty friend who is *really*
distraught. I wanted to be sure I couldn't post hoc edit my memory
later. What better way than to bet actual money?
On 11/4/24 12:45, steve smith wrote:
I think both polls and "markets" have a lot of self-selection bias...
what motivates folks to answer a poll and what motivates them to "buy
in"? Supposedly pollsters *can* try to wash that bias out, but
their "washing method" seems likely biased as well.
I am inclined to believe in the dynamics of "free markets" on
principle, but in this case, the self-selection bias likely
overwhelms the "efficient market hypothesis" aspect?
Why would "wealthy bastards" want to manipulate these markets with
high buy-ins? Firstly, wealth is exponentially distributed so no
matter how much I influence a market with my "vote", someone else can
overwhelm it with their own. If the true meaning of a market is
truly speculative based on likely returns from the market, there are
dynamics around manipulation, but if the real goal is to influence
opinion and confident, I can see why "wealthy bastards" might want to
contribute to the illusion of a Trump Supremacy/Ascendency, most
especially if it only involves spending one drop of sweat off of
their suntanned scrotal pudenda.
Mixing the two, in a no limit stakes market, why not run Trumps bias
up with you spare change, then place more significant bets "against
yourself" late in the game, either evening out the stakes/rewards to
gain advantage or to break even up to whatever influence their
offerings generated?
As an aside, I'm not sure what a *true* free market looks like and
given the range of human motivations and desires, I'm not sure we
want to let he raw id (or worse, amplified by mob-entrained
dynamics?) run free. I'd claim sub-?sapient? (think Swarm dynamics)
life runs on whatever the equivalent of the collective coupling of
ids might be in non-human/non-sapients? Once we started
"self-regulating" at a higher level than personal id/collective id we
started a habit that while perhaps highly adaptive, one we can't
backslide on too well without being at huge risk? We are addicted
to "governance" for better or worse, and I'm hopeful that we might be
able to make a phase transition from Churchill's "worst form of
government except for all the others we have tried" (i.e. Democracy
of some stripe?) to something more better (not sure what the fitness
function "more better" actually describes though).
I find these markets vaguely interesting (moreso when they were new
?20+ years ago)... and I'm glad to see you (Glen) putting some skin
in the game, I do think that shifts my perspective when I do so. I
bought into Blockchain through Cardano/Ada because I like the
aspirations of the project beyond/outside-of CryptoSpeculation...
and my (small) stake helps me be reminded to follow it's evolution
even when it feels a little boring. I can imagine doing the same
with the voting markets... but they vary enough I don't know which to
buy into. The Trump-leaning ones seem like a fools-game to me (for
Tump Fools), but I would have bet on Hillary 8 years ago (even if I
didn't vote for her). The one clearly unknown factor in Trump's
favor is that he is hugely more likely to arrange to get inaugurated
without winning either the popular or the electoral college vote...
is the variance from 50/50 in the markets perhaps reflecting that?
Both Kalshi <https://kalshi.com/markets/pres/presidential-elections>
and PolyMarket <https://polymarket.com/elections> skew heavily for
Trump. I'm like ... 51% confident that Harris will win (barring
legal shenanigans). I figured I'd go ahead and participate. So I
bought $50 worth of Harris "yes". And I've heard that there may be
some rich people manipulating the market. It's not clear to me why
they'd do that. But like Musk buying Twitter, it's clear that
"disposable" income takes on a deeper meaning when you've got so
much of it. But barring market manipulation: a) do y'all think the
markets have more "information", whatever that means, than the
polls? And b) are y'all participating in any of these markets?
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