Is Anderton about to announce his retirement?
This is a graph from iPredict for the MP.Anderton stock, which pays out $1 if Jim Anderton announces before 31 December 2009 he will not stand in the next general election.
Now it is unlikely Anderton will stand in 2011, but most people have thought it is not likely he will make a retirement announcement as early as 2009, as that makes him fairly irrelevant for the rest of the parliamentary term. Late 2010 is when you expect MPs to generally signal their intentions.
So for the last few months the MP.Anderton stock has been at around 25c – reflecting a 25% probability that he may announce this year.
But around a fortnight ago, one or more people started buying up MP.Anderton stock. And steadily over the fortnight it has shot up to almost 60c, or 60%.
I find it almost impossible to believe this is normal movement – especially considering Anderton has made no public indications. This suggests to me that someone with inside knowledge is buying up large to try and make a killing. That is legal incidentially as the idea of a prediction market is to get insider information out into the public.
So based on the movement in the share price, the only logical explanation is that Anderton has let it be known he will announce his retirement this year. It may even be Anderton who is buying up the shares?
UPDATE: Jim Anderton has emailed me saying:
Dear DavidI am not in the habit of rising to National Party baiting. But for the record, I am not going to announce my retirement this year. Unless National has plans to abolish parliament the way it abolished democracy in Auckland, anyone holding a bet that I will announce my retirement is going to lose their money. After all, I’m only 71.Jim Anderton
May 19th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Shonky Socialist.
One of the most smug sneering supercilious persons in the NZ parliament.
Living (while in power) in one of the most luxurious houses in the country at taxpayer expense, and about to retire on a taxpayer funded pension that far exceeds his real worth to the country, and all the while he takes these trappings and feeds so gluttonously at the trough, professing to care for the poor and disadvantaged of New Zealand.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find someone so useless and who has lined his pockets so well at the expense of NZ’s productive sector would now seek to make himself even richer by means of such distasteful measures.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Or this a subtle method of “pump & dump”? Maybe too late to get in I’d say. The old retirement ramping trick.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:50 am
If Anderton does retire the seat will go to Labour.
One can only hope that Labour put forward an existing list MP as their candidate, am I right in saying that would bring the “Tizard factor” back into play?
May 19th, 2009 at 9:58 am
It fell quite a bit overnight. At around .45 now.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:14 am
i just signed up to ipredict.. didnt realise the site uses actual money lol
i should probably research a bit more before diving in!
May 19th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Announce it!!!???
I thought he retired about nine years ago. When is he ever in parliament??
I just assumed that they had wheeled him out and parked him on the lawn with a rug over his legs.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
So comrade Jim is going to retire, perhaps a farrowing crate and trough would be a suitable retirement present, remind him of his years in parliament.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Who?
May 19th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
would now seek to make himself even richer by means of such distasteful measures.
This isn’t distasteful. The amount of money he could make off this is miniscule compared to the salary and benefits he has recieved over many years being an MP. Not to mention this money would be earned freely from people trading their own money, versus the salary which comes out of OUR pockets.
I think we are all getting a little too excited about this. This particular stock is seeing very low volumes traded. Consequently, the market maker (the software behind the scenes at iPredict) has set up the stock prices with fairly large distances between steps. If you buy 100 stocks – only $45 worth – you will move the market by a relatively large 5%. One deluded Anderton fan could have moved the stock by this much with just a few hundred dollars.
Long story short, we are making a mountain out of a molehill.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
“Pump and dump” is all very well, but as Luke H points out, the low volumes and large steps between prices make it very difficult to take your profit quickly without pushing the price back down to where it started.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
sideshow bob – farrowing crates are only for productive pigs
May 19th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
That is that then, they will have to carry him out feet first.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Will they payout if they discover the rest of his body is dead before the end of the Year?
May 19th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Why on earth would he retire???
He does nothing and over the next few years will pick up the thick end of 300k.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:40 am
You mean, the way Labour (with your support) demolished democracy in New Zealand in 2008 with the Electoral Finance Act?
cough*hypocrite*cough
May 20th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Can you see the total funds ‘invested’ anyway?
May 20th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Can you see the total funds ‘invested’ anyway?
I don’t know, can you?
(It is possible to find out, just a bit technical).