iPredict Column

Whoops. Forgot to blog my iPredict column from Wednesday:

BUY

QV.UP.SEPOCT09 has hit 45c this week, indicating it is going to be a very close call with house values. I still think it is worth a trade.

MP.POWELL is at 42c and pays out if National loses a List MP, and Conway Powell enters Parliament as the next on the list. I think this is a reasonable long term punt. National may lose an MP to scandal (and one MP has an unresolved Police investigation) but more likely is a diplomatic appointment before the term finishes.

SELL

NAT.3STRIKE has been at 10c for some time but with saving favourable things about it, hit 26c on the 21st, A story today says the Nats may back the bill, but without a minimum 20 years for the third (instead just a maximum sentence for that offence). This would appear to not meet the contract terms, so this stock should be good to sell I reckon.

MP.PETERS.2011 has climbed to 30c. I rate this overvalued as no party, except the ACT Party in 1996, has broken into Parliament under MMP with no current MPs.

A GOOD SELL

.JUN09 was at 98c in late August. But dropped away to under 70c on the 15th of September as speculation grew that we may avoid negative growth in the June 2009 quarter. And indeed just a couple of hours ago Stats NZ announced GDP growth of 0.1% ending the recession. So that would have been a good stock to sell, as some started to do in the last week.

POLLS

The market got the latest Roy Morgan poll right. The price for Labour going up and National going down were both at around 80c when the result came out last Friday.

The current price for this fortnight's polls is 65c for National to bounce back up and 70c for Labour to fall. With PM John Key getting lots of publicity in the UN and USA this week, I think this National going up is likely.

Cheers,

David

Disclosure

David's current iPredict positions are:

BROWN.RESIGN Short, DL.KING.09 Short, FASA04.REPEAL Short, .UP.JULY10 Short, LEAD..09 Short, MAYOR.BROWN Long, MIN.DEPART2.09 Short, MP.ANDERTON Short, MP.PETERS.2011 Short, NAT.MAORI.09 Short, OBAMA.DISAP.4NOV Short, OCR.INCR.APR10 Short, OCR.INCR.JAN10 Short, PETERS.LEADER Long, PM.2011.NATIONAL Long, VSM.1STREAD Long, ZIM.MUGABE Short