I didn't know there was a futures market for the next president. I read this in an article in Bloomberg:
Some investors are betting Bush will win the election. According to the Iowa Electronic Markets, as of 8:45 a.m. New York time investors were paying 53.2 cents for futures that pay $1 in November should Bush win the election. Kerry futures were quoted at 46.8 cents.
Sponsored by the University of Iowa Henry B. Tippie College of Business, the market allows investors to buy and sell futures contracts based on the outcome of political and economic events, such as elections and Federal Reserve interest-rate changes.
They also have a market for who will be nominated as the Democratic candidate. It will cost you two tenths of a cent to buy a share that'll pay a dollar if Lieberman gets nominated.
Michael sez: I think the Bloomberg article made an error when it claimed,
"investors were paying 53.2 cents for futures that pay $1 in November should Bush win the election. Kerry futures were quoted at 46.8 cents." Notice that Dems are slightly favored over Republicans, which contradicts the Bloomberg article. Here is the prospectus for this future. Bloomberg probably misattributed another futures market to the presidential winner market. This futures market sort of looks like Kerry vs. Bush, but is really on who will be on the November ticket. The most likely being Bush/Kerry. (See the prospectus below.) Of course it's possible that Bloomberg was quoting a market value from several weeks ago, but I doubt it. Although it's true that, as the article claimed, "Some investors are betting that Bush will win the election." *Most* investors are betting that Kerry will win. At least for today.
