Romney, Obama, Rasmussen

MattusMaximus said:
Yup, as of this writing, Romney is at 40.2% on Intrade.

Where's Brainster?

Where are all of the Romney supporters who, just less than a day ago, were crowing on and on about a Romney "surge" because people were finally figuring out that he's the man for the job?

And where are all the people claiming that talk of price manipulation amounted to... what was the phrase... conspiracy theorizing?

:popcorn1

Meanwhile, there are those of us who saw this for exactly what it was, and we predicted on this forum less than 24 hours ago that the Romney "surge" in the markets was just a fantasy.

*points to self*

ETA: I want my million $$$ :D
Click to expand...

It's still bouncing - about an hour now - between 3.99 and 4.19. That seems to be where the line is drawn. For a long period I was watching the Thai Baht exchange market like a hawk and it's probably not too dissimilar to this in terms of size. People with a few bucks want the price to settle somewhere and will time their buy or sell accordingly. I'd read economic news out of Thailand and think, "Damn, it'll go up four points!", and it would start, but the Thai banks would step in and buy or sell to get it where THEY thought it should be and then the HK and Tokyo money boys would counter that until they reached a point where the volume in trading would drop and that woud be the new ceiling or floor. Right now, it looks like someone's decided the floor needs to be $4.20. The activity will tell if that's correct, but it seems to be satisfying the market. There are very few shares available at that price, so no one seems to move above or below it. Again, this is just how the smaller foreign exchange markets behave.
 
DavidJames said:
How many times when someone tells you there is a 68% chance of something happening and it doesn't happen, before you stop paying attention?

How long, when the weatherman keeps telling you there is 10% chance of rain, and it rains, before you start watching another channel?
Click to expand...
My understanding of "probability of precipitation" is thus: prevailing or developing conditions are compared with similar conditions in the past as a way to forecast the future. Simply put (considering temperature, relative humidity, dew point, atmospheric pressure, wind, etc.), if during ten past periods certain readings coincided or resulted in rain four of those times, it would suggest a 40% chance of rain (or snow, or whatever) during the next similar period.

So a forecast of a 10% chance of rain means, while it's not very likely, it's happened, so can happen again. Because it's raining out doesn't mean the forecast was wrong (hey, judging by all that water it sure looks like a 100% chance to me!). One isolated occurrence can't serve as a predictor. The meteorologist provides the aggregate of past info, along with modern simulations to gauge future likelihood.
 
Last edited:
Neally said:
Spikes are by definition transitory and temporary. That's not what been happening since the 18th.
Click to expand...

remirol said:
Nothing has been happening, really. Romney's price has been largely consistent since right about mid-May, except for a sharp downward spike after the 47% video was released, and a rebound after the first debate. And it's sitting there hovering right around 40-ish.
...
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=546&pictureid=6836[/qimg]
Click to expand...

Neally said:
This has been happening since the 18th. The article that keeps getting cited talks about spikes that last for minutes. When those types of spikes occur, people jump on them and the market self corrects. Something that lasts for days, like this is not a market manipulation issue:

[qimg]http://i429.photobucket.com/albums/qq12/kendal_056/map.png[/qimg]
Click to expand...

remirol said:
Well, yes... see... that's how trend lines work, and how more reality-based people avoid getting over-excited about short-term fluctuations that don't actually mean anything...
Click to expand...

Hey, Neally, anything to say about the recent one-day short-term fluctuation in Romney's price... aka "spike", along with the expected and predicted regression to the existing trendline?

I didn't see you bet big yesterday. I guess that means you knew I was right all along, huh? :D

picture.php


:dl:
 
As usual, Nate has an interesting take on things:

FTFA said:
According to Brandon Adams, a professional poker player and a teaching fellow at Harvard, Intrade’s prices are not necessarily considered more reliable by professional gamblers. Mr. Adams says that Betfair and the sports book Pinnacle, both of which put Mr. Obama’s odds at about 63 percent as of early Wednesday morning, feature more sophisticated market participants.

However, Intrade is cited far more frequently by the American news media.
Click to expand...

And also...

FTFA said:
A 2009 paper by David Rothschild found that FiveThirtyEight’s forecasts were somewhat better than Intrade’s over the course of the 2008 presidential election cycle. Mr. Rothschild wrote, however, that Intrade’s forecasts would have outperformed FiveThirtyEight’s had they been corrected to adjust for the market’s tendency to overrate the chances of the trailing candidate (what is known as a favorite-long shot bias). Of course, if that bias still applies in Intrade’s pricing, it would imply that the market is overrating Mr. Romney’s chances now as he is the underdog in the race.
Click to expand...

Anyone who's ever placed any number of real bets* in their life is aware of two things about gambling:

1) There is no guarantee that any given bettor actually knows what they're doing, or if they're just splashing to see what happens.
2) The longshot bias is real.

By and large, InTrade is still going to be fairly reliable as a bellwether; simply put, there are enough big bettors who have no interest in losing their shirt, and so they'll analyse all facets from a truly objective perspective and then put money down based on that analysis. THESE people will tend to be right, and there will be enough of them (and they will have enough money in action) that they'll tend to ensure that things self-correct at least close to the actual odds. But whenever someone (or several someones) comes in and throws money around like an idiot for their favourite, you can also safely count on that same group of "THESE people" to politely and quietly extract the money from the idiot until they're done throwing money around.



* With real non-trivial money, where you didn't have inside information, and where you were betting against someone who was using all available information themselves.
 
Perhaps I'm being a little too innocent here, but I can't really understand why someone would want/need to skew poll results.

I mean, I can understand that a Poll can be a useful device to establish how well your candidate is doing and perhaps which issues resonate best or worst with the electorate, so that you can then adjust your strategy accordingly.

But this need to spin the results as either good for your candidate and/or poor for the opposition's almost seems as if there is a belief that the poll results might actually have an impact on the election itself, possibly that a sizeable number of people don't actually know who to vote for and so the Poll is a way of telling them?

I can understand a situation where perhaps deliberately making the Polls look worse for your candidate could be a good motivator for getting your campaign machine to work harder and for those who would support your candidate but who might sit out the election itself actually being energised to go and vote. There's always that problem of complacency when the result appears to be a sure thing.

But what is the real basis for this squabbling over what the Polls mean? Is it just internet conversation or is it insecurity? If that's the case then it looks like come election day some people are going to be in for a big disappointment if they've managed to convince themselves that their candidate is doing better than he actually is.
 
uk_dave said:
Perhaps I'm being a little too innocent here, but I can't really understand why someone would want/need to skew poll results.

I mean, I can understand that a Poll can be a useful device to establish how well your candidate is doing and perhaps which issues resonate best or worst with the electorate, so that you can then adjust your strategy accordingly.

But this need to spin the results as either good for your candidate and/or poor for the opposition's almost seems as if there is a belief that the poll results might actually have an impact on the election itself, possibly that a sizeable number of people don't actually know who to vote for and so the Poll is a way of telling them?

I can understand a situation where perhaps deliberately making the Polls look worse for your candidate could be a good motivator for getting your campaign machine to work harder and for those who would support your candidate but who might sit out the election itself actually being energised to go and vote. There's always that problem of complacency when the result appears to be a sure thing.

But what is the real basis for this squabbling over what the Polls mean? Is it just internet conversation or is it insecurity? If that's the case then it looks like come election day some people are going to be in for a big disappointment if they've managed to convince themselves that their candidate is doing better than he actually is.
Click to expand...

If polls show a candidate doing poorly it can be de-motivating, voters/supporters develop a "What's the point?" attitude and stay home. It's said something like this happened in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election. The line goes, the state was called early for Gore and Bush supporters stopped going to the polls. I don't know if it was ever substantiated or not, but I'm sure there'll be commentary about it shortly.
 
Last edited:
remirol said:
Hey, Neally, anything to say about the recent one-day short-term fluctuation in Romney's price... aka "spike",
Click to expand...
Not really. Several days of rising prices then a day down. When did you ever see a stock price go straight up with never a down day? On the other hand this very well could be the beginning of a longer term drop. Time will tell.

along with the expected and predicted regression to the existing trendline?
Click to expand...
Expected an predicted by who? The "trendline" totally depends on the length you select. Regression to the mean would indicate Romneys odds go back up if you use data from the 18th.

Oh and you're welcome for the mini lesson on stats 101.
 
So any truth to what I'm hearing lately that in national polling, Romney is roughly even with Obama among women (who are likely voters)?

I find that a little hard to believe.
 
Mike! said:
If polls show a candidate doing poorly it can be de-motivating, voters/supporters develop a "What's the point?" attitude and stay home.
Click to expand...

Key words: "can be". It "can" also have the opposite effect.

And based on the handful of campaigns I've been involved with, I think it's more likely to motivate campaigns than cause them to give up. Even in states where one candidate has little chance, I think you'll find campaign volunteers going at it with lots of energy and enthusiasm.

Oddly enough, fund-raising seems to have only one direction: more. When a candidate says something controversial, both sides glom onto it immediately in their fund raising appeals.
 
Last edited:
Neally said:
Not really. Several days of rising prices then a day down. When did you ever see a stock price go straight up with never a down day? On the other hand this very well could be the beginning of a longer term drop. Time will tell.
Click to expand...

You meant to say 'Several days of falling prices, then several days of rising prices, then a one-day spike that immediately reverted to the trend.'

But hey, bet big! Your odds just got better if you're right :D

Expected an predicted by who? The "trendline" totally depends on the length you select.
Click to expand...

Precisely my point. You cherry picked a particular length of data that allowed you to pretend there was an actual significant improvement in Romney's position. I used a longer (read: more accurate) set of data to show that your pretense was nothing more than regression from a prior dip. I then used an even longer (read: even more accurate) set of data over several months to show that "about 40%" is, in fact, exactly where Romney's chances have been all along -- and that even a massive downward lurch didn't hold.

It appears that your stats 101 teacher should have been fired. Consider yourself re-educated, especially on why cherry-picking is a no-no and why more and longer-term data always is more accurate.

:dl:
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
So any truth to what I'm hearing lately that in national polling, Romney is roughly even with Obama among women (who are likely voters)?

I find that a little hard to believe.
Click to expand...

I've only heard that result about one AP poll. I'm disinclined to put any weight on it until a number of other polls show something similar.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
So any truth to what I'm hearing lately that in national polling, Romney is roughly even with Obama among women (who are likely voters)?
Click to expand...
http://ap-gfkpoll.com/uncategorized/findings-from-our-latest-poll
find that a little hard to believe.
Click to expand...
Why? Because the GOP hates women, supports their rape, doesn't want them to have contraceptives, and all the other anti-women talking points the left wants you to believe? Guess women aren't a stupid as you might imagine and are seeing through those talking points.
 
remirol said:
Precisely my point. You cherry picked a particular length of data that allowed you to pretend there was an actual significant improvement in Romney's position. I used a longer (read: more accurate) set of data to show that your pretense was nothing more than regression from a prior dip. I then used an even longer (read: even more accurate) set of data over several months to show that "about 40%" is, in fact, exactly where Romney's chances have been all along -- and that even a massive downward lurch didn't hold.
Click to expand...
Um no, still failing at stats I see. Longer doesn't mean "more accurate" necessarily. This has been pointed out several times. There has been an undeniable shift in voter sentiment since the first debate. You seem to have a mental block on this. Sorry but it's a fact. Looking at polling data months ago is obviously stale and doesn't reflect current sentiment. So much for your "Longer is more accurate". The correct or accurate the length of the trend can only be determined after the fact, but when there has been an obvious change in sentiment, insisting older data is "more accurate" is retarded.

It appears that your stats 101 teacher should have been fired. Consider yourself re-educated, especially on why cherry-picking is a no-no and why more and longer-term data always is more accurate.
Click to expand...
LOL Massive fail again. Doubled down on your first failed. Your on a roll, and that's a bad trend.:D
 
Neally said:
Um no, still failing at stats I see. Longer doesn't mean "more accurate" necessarily. This has been pointed out several times. There has been an undeniable shift in voter sentiment since the first debate. You seem to have a mental block on this. Sorry but it's a fact.
Click to expand...

1) You meant to say "There has been an undeniable regression to the mean in polling since the first debate". There was an undeniable shift after the 47% video was released. :D

2) Guess again! :D
 
Nate Silver (who doesn't know what he's doing, according to some people) thinks Romney's momentum from the first debate has stopped. His model currently gives Obama a 71% chance of winning on Nov. 6.
 
Neally said:
http://ap-gfkpoll.com/uncategorized/findings-from-our-latest-poll
Why? Because the GOP hates women, supports their rape, doesn't want them to have contraceptives, and all the other anti-women talking points the left wants you to believe? Guess women aren't a stupid as you might imagine and are seeing through those talking points.
Click to expand...

38% of that sample came from the South. I'd like to see a nationally representative poll saying Romney is evening with women voters, or see that poll separated by region, but it probably won't happen. We will find out what gender voted for whom after election day. Until then, we can only rely on our perceptions and anecdotes (just like the article).

Gallup is one polling company that posts their data by region. Guess what? Romney is only winning one, the South. He's also winning it so handily that it might weight polls that oversample that region in the wrong direction. Once again, articles quoting the Gallup poll often fail to mention this skew, but at least they put the data out there.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom