MAILBAG: My Stockings Are Stuffed With Your Genius
Political Animals, I am just loving how you are hitting me with more genius ideas for trades all the time. This platform works two ways and I get some of my best ideas from you. Hit me up if you want to talk shop. Here is this week’s mail:
FROM ARMAN:
I’m a huge fan of star spangled gamblers and just had to share this “tip” with you (Especially after you won me money with impeachment in 2019). Anyway this will take a minute to explain but I think it’s a good bet. The Tip: Buy NO on the Republican winning the Senate race in Maine. Now this sounds dumb because it expires a year from now and this will be a super close contested race. BUT, what makes this interesting is Impeachment. Consider 2 scenarios for YES DEMOCRATS shares:
— Collins votes NOT GUILTY in the Senate trial. She will then easily wins the primary and go on to fight a close race. If Yes shares fall, it will be small, probably at most 10%.
— Collins votes GUILTY on Trump in the Senate trial. Except wait, this definitely won’t happen as Collins knows she will likely be beaten in the primary by a Trump Republican (someone like Paul LePage). Which leads me to scenario3.
— Collins takes a page out of Olympia Snowe’s playbook and shockingly retires. Also she is supposedly going to announce if she’ll run before the end of fall.
Sen. Susan Collins says she will announce her decision on whether to run for reelection by the end of this week https://t.co/FMlOSD2uH1
— POLITICO (@politico) December 17, 2019
Maybe I’m just an idiot and I’m drastically overestimating the chance that she retires, but I feel like this is a play with a good chance of a small loss (if she announces she is running, which likely means a NO for Dems) but a small chance for a massive gain (Dems obviously win if she retires).
Arman — You are a clever dude. If I am reading this correctly, you basically think you have found a no-risk way to capitalize on the upside of a possible retirement announcement from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), given that she has a hard race coming up in 2020. I am skeptical that a tough old hag like her is going to back down but I think you’re logic is pretty good. Very little is going to change in the pricing of this market before the new year. It could be a great way to catch a fast pump.
FROM DAVID:
Im very confused with this bet i have on how many tweets @potus will make from 12/13-12/20. I put 50 bucks on over 95 when it was at 60 cents. He had since surpassed that and has over 8100 tweets total. What is going on and what should i do? Its down to 29 cents now.
David — Check out this tool that will count tweets for you.
It looks to me like you are about to get boned. Sorry bruh. This is why I don’t bet on Tweet counts.
FROM DOUG:
The who-will-drop-out-next market has pricing that lets me buy all of the candidates for $150 with each having between a 80% payout or a 3100%. This -Â in financial lingo – is called a straddle. Or a field bet in horse racing. Except this is rare in gambling. It’s all because half the field are dirt cheap – 2 and 5 cents – and the expensive half are under 50-cents. Your readers might be interested.
I bought the shares slowly. These markets move instantly so it took three days. Now I have a huge payout on two and hedges that cover 80% of my loss. That’s incredible
Btw I sold impeachment at 91-cents. Cashed $150 back into my checking account. Took the profit and let the original grub stake ride. Thanks Keendawg.
Doug — Here is the part about this bet that I like the most. These drop-out markets have taken some whacky turns in the past. Most people would have accused you of being high on bath salts if you had said that Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris would bail before Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, and Cory Booker. I honestly do not even know what to say about Andrew Yang but you get my point. That is probably a great reason to search for some alpha here but I lose my chubby the second I make bet on something without having a clear winner in mind. This strategy might work for you but it isn’t quite right for me. Never-the-less:
Great week for the boys.
Got any idea for a trade? A market you are watching? Hit me up and we’ll discuss.
KEENDAWG.
Here’s a tip: If you are daring enough to play the PredictIt markets for number of Yes votes (or Democrat defections) on impeachment, AND you live in the Washington DC area, listen to C-SPAN radio (90.1 FM in Washington DC) and you’ll have a jump on those watching on TV by at least 30 seconds. But I’m not sure how often they will give an update on the vote count and what the party breakdown of the vote count is, like on C-SPAN TV.