[FRIAM] betting markets

[steve smith]

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?
>>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20241105/457597a8/attachment.html>