FoxLiveBlogTeam 42 seconds ago The Trump campaign has released a statement:
“This election is not over. The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final. Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail," - Matt Morgan, Trump 2020 campaign general counsel, said.
"There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations. We prevailed in court on our challenge, but were deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law. In Nevada, there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots. Finally, the President is on course to win Arizona outright, despite the irresponsible and erroneous ‘calling’ of the state for Biden by Fox News and the Associated Press. Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected.”
After Trump's outbursts and reported going mental at Rupert Murdoch, he has gone from probably spinning his presidency into the top rated show on Fox News and perhaps one of Team Trump being able to have another go in 2024, to more likely being on the InfoWars network having to read ads for overpriced supplements and survival kits and having all his social media permanently banned.
I suppose he will have things like a presidential library to fill his time.
FoxLiveBlogTeam 1 minute ago Ivanka Trump is tweeting that "every legally cast vote should be counted."
Ivanka is on the side of the angels. Don Jr came out swinging for dad; Ivanka breaks a long silence to join sane Republicans in diplomatic statements of the bleeding obvious.
PB is at its best at these times. Great punditry from a wide range of our own diverse community. This allows us to challenge our preconceptions , confirmation bias and personal beliefs. For a site like PB that is all important for turning a few shillings of profit as the greatest enemy of profit is allowing you political views to cloud your better judgement.
FoxLiveBlogTeam 42 seconds ago The Trump campaign has released a statement:
“This election is not over. The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final. Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail," - Matt Morgan, Trump 2020 campaign general counsel, said.
"There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations. We prevailed in court on our challenge, but were deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law. In Nevada, there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots. Finally, the President is on course to win Arizona outright, despite the irresponsible and erroneous ‘calling’ of the state for Biden by Fox News and the Associated Press. Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected.”
Oh, give it up you prats.
Time for the men in white coats or the lady in the white dress (Ivanka).
FoxLiveBlogTeam 1 minute ago Ivanka Trump is tweeting that "every legally cast vote should be counted."
Ivanka is on the side of the angels. Don Jr came out swinging for dad; Ivanka breaks a long silence to join sane Republicans in diplomatic statements of the bleeding obvious.
FoxLiveBlogTeam 1 minute ago Ivanka Trump is tweeting that "every legally cast vote should be counted."
Ivanka is on the side of the angels. Don Jr came out swinging for dad; Ivanka breaks a long silence to join sane Republicans in diplomatic statements of the bleeding obvious.
The "every legally cast vote should be counted." line is highly ambiguous.
The implication is that some of the votes counted are no legal and should be discarded.
When Trump Tweeted "Stop the Count" he didn't actually mean to stop counting, he meant to stop counting illegal (i.e. Dem) votes.
TBH we just don't know. Think back 4 years (ok plus a few months.) Cameron has won a majority, remain is ahead in the polls. Even Farage thought he'd lost. Four years later we've on our second PM, have had two general elections with a hung parliament and now an 80 seat majority, have left the EU (some still can't grasp this) are about to sign a trade deal with said EU. I don't know what the next 4 years will hold. I hope it sees a return to normal life. I hope economies around the world recover and that the poorest and least well off are helped to improve their lives. I hope Boris is removed as PM to go back to being a hack for the Telegraph, or whichever paper will have him. I'd like Labour to purge its extremist tendencies and become a party that the centre will vote for in the way that Blair's labour was. But WE JUST DON'T KNOW.
Just imagine if Meghan Wales and Harry Wales had done this?
An advert for a coronavirus "passport" app, which has been promoted by Zara Tindall, has been referred to the medical regulator over concerns it contradicts health guidance.
The V-Health Passport allows Covid test results to be uploaded to a phone - meaning people can demonstrate they are safe to attend sports and other events.
But in an ad to promote it, Mrs Tindall is shown having an antibody test.
Government guidance says these tests do not show if you currently have Covid.
VST Enterprises, which owns the app, said the particular antibody test featured in its video was used for "illustrative purposes". It said it was correct that antibody tests are usually only used to identify previous infection.
She's an elite sportsperson called Mrs Tindall after her husband, not after a country, not a Duchess of anything, not living on your tax dollar. No issue here.
LOL. Sounds like you've followed her away from Worcester Lodge.
Amongst the statistical modellers, all were over-bullish on Biden to different (and in some cases extreme) degrees. However, both 538 and the Economist models had 306 as well within the range of fairly likely outcomes, so they didn't do too badly. We'll gloss over the YouGov MRP...
Perhaps Decision Desk HQ (which got very little attention) did best, in the sense that their central prediction was fairly close at 317, and with a margin of error which wasn't so large as to make the prediction meaningless. One to remember next time.
@OnlyLivingBoy on here forecast 306 – albeit with a slightly different mix of states.
I think it's a toss-up between him and @JackW in terms of who is PB Pundit Potus2020.
You are all too kind. I look forward to my share of everyone's winnings!
FoxLiveBlogTeam 1 minute ago Ivanka Trump is tweeting that "every legally cast vote should be counted."
Ivanka is on the side of the angels. Don Jr came out swinging for dad; Ivanka breaks a long silence to join sane Republicans in diplomatic statements of the bleeding obvious.
The "every legally cast vote should be counted." line is highly ambiguous.
The implication is that some of the votes counted are no legal and should be discarded.
When Trump Tweeted "Stop the Count" he didn't actually mean to stop counting, he meant to stop counting illegal (i.e. Dem) votes.
This, McConnell said exactly the same yesterday. It suggests let the process continue , but as you say it also says, its for the Trump machine to decide what is legal and what isnt. Covering both bases
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
PB is at its best at these times. Great punditry from a wide range of our own diverse community. This allows us to challenge our preconceptions , confirmation bias and personal beliefs. For a site like PB that is all important for turning a few shillings of profit as the greatest enemy of profit is allowing you political views to cloud your better judgement.
Well done all ...
Well said, as a long time lurker and recent poster, this site is where I always come first for political insight and views and the odd betting tip of course
Amongst the statistical modellers, all were over-bullish on Biden to different (and in some cases extreme) degrees. However, both 538 and the Economist models had 306 as well within the range of fairly likely outcomes, so they didn't do too badly. We'll gloss over the YouGov MRP...
Perhaps Decision Desk HQ (which got very little attention) did best, in the sense that their central prediction was fairly close at 317, and with a margin of error which wasn't so large as to make the prediction meaningless. One to remember next time.
@OnlyLivingBoy on here forecast 306 – albeit with a slightly different mix of states.
I think it's a toss-up between him and @JackW in terms of who is PB Pundit Potus2020.
You are all too kind. I look forward to my share of everyone's winnings!
Yes, at the moment it does look like Biden will be President elect, the question is now merely about his margin of victory.
If confirmed it will be a historic feat he has achieved, only the second presidential candidate alongside Ronald Reagan since 1900 to defeat an incumbent President after only 1 term of his party in the White House
Indeed.
The only first term (party wise) losers since 1900: Carter, Trump.
Trump deserves a legacy like that.
I suspect Carter's post-presidency life will outclass Trump's by a factor of, er, about a million.
So there must be a betting opportunity on what time today Trumps current position on AZ changes from," keep counting as I'm going to win" to "stop the count, a water pipe burst and soaked the observers, I'm deploying lawyers'
Okay, and away from the fun and shenanigans of the US election, I did promise to update my crude model from Monday following the ONS stats coming out.
First graph: as before, red is actual UK deaths per day, with days added since the Monday graph in a lighter pink. The transparent orange is the projection of 0.67% IFR against the ONS data, lagged 19 days. Transparent grey is the same projection from the ONS data as per Monday, with a constant R increase as per the most recent data at that date up until the lockdown, at which point it declines with a rate equivalent to an R of 0.9.
On first glance, it looks discouraging - the extra deaths added since Monday (deaths taken up until the 30th of October to avoid almost all the lag) are outstripping the crude model.
However.
The latest data, when you pull out the spreadsheet they make available has amended some of the historical data. And, on top of that, the extrapolated increase has, as it turns out, levelled off.
The revised data means that a projection of 0.67% IFR lagged by 19 days no longer works for most of the time. Since late September, it has been continually lower than the actual deaths, and quite significantly so.
If we correct for the corrected ONS data and assume that the levelling off continues to the lockdown and then declines at an R of 0.9, you get this:
The added translucent yellow bars with thick outlines show the corrected projection. As can be seen, the historical deaths are consistently above the line, often considerably so.
Going to the data for the average imputed IFR over recent weeks, it now comes out at a slightly more alarming 0.85%. Redoing the model with a 0.85% IFR projection, we get this:
Some of the deaths are still above the new level, but overall it's a closer fit. It implies that deaths per day should level off at around 450 per day from about the 9th or 10th of this month. Before declining when the lockdown kicks in.
I'm actually hoping that the decline is faster than shown - if we levelled off before the lockdown kicked in, we can hope that the R inside of lockdown will be considerably lower than 0.9.
You won't find a more GOP GOP legislature than Pennsylvania
“The Pennsylvania General Assembly does not have, and will not have, a hand in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election,” Pennsylvania State Senator Jake Corman, a Republican, said in an op-ed.
“To insinuate otherwise is to inappropriately set fear into the Pennsylvania electorate with an imaginary scenario not provided for anywhere in law — or in fact,” he continued.
FoxLiveBlogTeam 1 minute ago Ivanka Trump is tweeting that "every legally cast vote should be counted."
Ivanka is on the side of the angels. Don Jr came out swinging for dad; Ivanka breaks a long silence to join sane Republicans in diplomatic statements of the bleeding obvious.
The "every legally cast vote should be counted." line is highly ambiguous.
The implication is that some of the votes counted are no legal and should be discarded.
When Trump Tweeted "Stop the Count" he didn't actually mean to stop counting, he meant to stop counting illegal (i.e. Dem) votes.
Trump really did mean stop counting in states where PVs etc favoured Biden. What McConnell and Ivanka are saying is motherhood and apple pie, appearing at first glance to agree with the President but on a second look, are saying almost nothing beyond a bland statement of the law. It's the difference between "lock her up" and "convicted criminals should be sentenced".
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
All that effort and you are going to waste the proceeds on over-tannic wine?
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of it on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
Well done
Ignoring a few minor (losing) side bets, I kept it all very simple with a hefty pre-vote bet on Biden4potus @ 1/2 which I let run.
I went to bed and missed all the betting action on the night - for better or for worse!
All in all I can’t complain.
My only real regret is missing the evens available on Biden at the height of the Hunter Biden laptop nonsense.
Yes, at the moment it does look like Biden will be President elect, the question is now merely about his margin of victory.
If confirmed it will be a historic feat he has achieved, only the second presidential candidate alongside Ronald Reagan since 1900 to defeat an incumbent President after only 1 term of his party in the White House
Indeed.
The only first term (party wise) losers since 1900: Carter, Trump.
Trump deserves a legacy like that.
As he himself admits, Carter is a far better ex-President than he was President. I think he will be remembered fondly by history as nice guy in the wrong place and definitely at the wrong time. Trump will need a personality transplant and a religious experience to achieve that.
Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a slew of last-ditch lawsuits this week in what seems to be a clear effort to try to drag out vote counting and create a cloud of uncertainty over an election he is on the verge of losing. But legal experts have noted that the lawsuits appear to be long shots and even if successful, they would not change the outcome of the race.
The Trump campaign is taking legal action in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada - all battleground states Trump has either lost (such as the state of Michigan) or faces a tough fight to win. In each case, his campaign has loudly trumpeted the filings of suits with allegations that include counting late-arriving ballots, campaign observers not having adequate access to poll counting, and invalid votes being tabulated.
So far, the legal battle is not going well. The Trump campaign lost two suits on Thursday in Michigan and Georgia.
“They all seem to have no merit whatsoever,” said Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who focuses on elections. “I think the goal is to sow discord and distrust and undermine the people and the integrity of the election. I think giving them additional air time just plays into that theory.”
Okay, and away from the fun and shenanigans of the US election, I did promise to update my crude model from Monday following the ONS stats coming out.
First graph: as before, red is actual UK deaths per day, with days added since the Monday graph in a lighter pink. The transparent orange is the projection of 0.67% IFR against the ONS data, lagged 19 days. Transparent grey is the same projection from the ONS data as per Monday, with a constant R increase as per the most recent data at that date up until the lockdown, at which point it declines with a rate equivalent to an R of 0.9.
On first glance, it looks discouraging - the extra deaths added since Monday (deaths taken up until the 30th of October to avoid almost all the lag) are outstripping the crude model.
However.
The latest data, when you pull out the spreadsheet they make available has amended some of the historical data. And, on top of that, the extrapolated increase has, as it turns out, levelled off.
The revised data means that a projection of 0.67% IFR lagged by 19 days no longer works for most of the time. Since late September, it has been continually lower than the actual deaths, and quite significantly so.
If we correct for the corrected ONS data and assume that the levelling off continues to the lockdown and then declines at an R of 0.9, you get this:
The added translucent yellow bars with thick outlines show the corrected projection. As can be seen, the historical deaths are consistently above the line, often considerably so.
Going to the data for the average imputed IFR over recent weeks, it now comes out at a slightly more alarming 0.85%. Redoing the model with a 0.85% IFR projection, we get this:
Some of the deaths are still above the new level, but overall it's a closer fit. It implies that deaths per day should level off at around 450 per day from about the 9th or 10th of this month. Before declining when the lockdown kicks in.
I'm actually hoping that the decline is faster than shown - if we levelled off before the lockdown kicked in, we can hope that the R inside of lockdown will be considerably lower than 0.9.
IF the Dems could pull off a miracle in North Carolina my bank balance would heartily appreciate. Thanks.
No thanks. I sold Biden at 320 ECV.
Anywhere from Biden 289 to 338 will give me a decent meal out..
I wasn't planning to bet anything on this election but the 4-1 odds BetVictor gave me on Trump getting 200-249 votes was too great an offer to turn down. Especially when the bet was a bonus one.
Network projections of the result have no official force in legal terms. 99% of the time they will be correct - but their projections do occasionally have to be retracted as in the case of Florida - twice! - in 2000. Then,of course, we have the recounts.
Okay, and away from the fun and shenanigans of the US election, I did promise to update my crude model from Monday following the ONS stats coming out.
First graph: as before, red is actual UK deaths per day, with days added since the Monday graph in a lighter pink. The transparent orange is the projection of 0.67% IFR against the ONS data, lagged 19 days. Transparent grey is the same projection from the ONS data as per Monday, with a constant R increase as per the most recent data at that date up until the lockdown, at which point it declines with a rate equivalent to an R of 0.9.
On first glance, it looks discouraging - the extra deaths added since Monday (deaths taken up until the 30th of October to avoid almost all the lag) are outstripping the crude model.
However.
The latest data, when you pull out the spreadsheet they make available has amended some of the historical data. And, on top of that, the extrapolated increase has, as it turns out, levelled off.
The revised data means that a projection of 0.67% IFR lagged by 19 days no longer works for most of the time. Since late September, it has been continually lower than the actual deaths, and quite significantly so.
If we correct for the corrected ONS data and assume that the levelling off continues to the lockdown and then declines at an R of 0.9, you get this:
The added translucent yellow bars with thick outlines show the corrected projection. As can be seen, the historical deaths are consistently above the line, often considerably so.
Going to the data for the average imputed IFR over recent weeks, it now comes out at a slightly more alarming 0.85%. Redoing the model with a 0.85% IFR projection, we get this:
Some of the deaths are still above the new level, but overall it's a closer fit. It implies that deaths per day should level off at around 450 per day from about the 9th or 10th of this month. Before declining when the lockdown kicks in.
I'm actually hoping that the decline is faster than shown - if we levelled off before the lockdown kicked in, we can hope that the R inside of lockdown will be considerably lower than 0.9.
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
All that effort and you are going to waste the proceeds on over-tannic wine?
It won't be over-tannic by the time I (or possibly the beneficiaries of my will) drink it.
You won't find a more GOP GOP legislature than Pennsylvania
“The Pennsylvania General Assembly does not have, and will not have, a hand in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election,” Pennsylvania State Senator Jake Corman, a Republican, said in an op-ed.
“To insinuate otherwise is to inappropriately set fear into the Pennsylvania electorate with an imaginary scenario not provided for anywhere in law — or in fact,” he continued.
Network projections of the result have no official force in legal terms. 99% of the time they will be correct - but their projections do occasionally have to be retracted as in the case of Florida - twice! - in 2000. Then,of course, we have the recounts.
Apparently Fox’s criteria is 99.5% certainty. On which basis you’d expect one erroneous call every 16 years.
OK time for some soul searching about my betting performance on the US election.
I stuck a fiver on Trump at around 2.5-3 on bf because I didn't think it would be the overwhelming Biden majority that many were forecasting/hoping for/wishing would come and I thought that if it wasn't a huge Biden majority then Trump was in with a shout.
Network projections of the result have no official force in legal terms. 99% of the time they will be correct - but their projections do occasionally have to be retracted as in the case of Florida - twice! - in 2000. Then,of course, we have the recounts.
Recounts won't change anything substantial - only Wisconsin is close enough I think, Biden's margin there is way outside recount error. Pennsylvania is a mathematical lock to continue to get even better for Biden. Georgia may well be recounted, it won't matter and Biden will still be ahead.
And the Pennsylvania legislature has signalled it won't take part in some sort of weird Electoral college coup to install Trump.
Okay, and away from the fun and shenanigans of the US election, I did promise to update my crude model from Monday following the ONS stats coming out.
First graph: as before, red is actual UK deaths per day, with days added since the Monday graph in a lighter pink. The transparent orange is the projection of 0.67% IFR against the ONS data, lagged 19 days. Transparent grey is the same projection from the ONS data as per Monday, with a constant R increase as per the most recent data at that date up until the lockdown, at which point it declines with a rate equivalent to an R of 0.9.
On first glance, it looks discouraging - the extra deaths added since Monday (deaths taken up until the 30th of October to avoid almost all the lag) are outstripping the crude model.
However.
The latest data, when you pull out the spreadsheet they make available has amended some of the historical data. And, on top of that, the extrapolated increase has, as it turns out, levelled off.
The revised data means that a projection of 0.67% IFR lagged by 19 days no longer works for most of the time. Since late September, it has been continually lower than the actual deaths, and quite significantly so.
If we correct for the corrected ONS data and assume that the levelling off continues to the lockdown and then declines at an R of 0.9, you get this:
The added translucent yellow bars with thick outlines show the corrected projection. As can be seen, the historical deaths are consistently above the line, often considerably so.
Going to the data for the average imputed IFR over recent weeks, it now comes out at a slightly more alarming 0.85%. Redoing the model with a 0.85% IFR projection, we get this:
Some of the deaths are still above the new level, but overall it's a closer fit. It implies that deaths per day should level off at around 450 per day from about the 9th or 10th of this month. Before declining when the lockdown kicks in.
I'm actually hoping that the decline is faster than shown - if we levelled off before the lockdown kicked in, we can hope that the R inside of lockdown will be considerably lower than 0.9.
Bloody good work there, Andy. 450 deaths per day peak sounds about right as well. I'm not sure that the R will drop significantly below 1 with or without this lockdown.
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
And just think of all those agricultural workers in the Medoc who will benefit Richard.
The BBC quotes a statement by Trump's lawyer (he managed to find one, apparently) specifying complaints about Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada, and denying that Biden would win Arizona (which is really a matter for a psephologist, not a lawyer).
It all seems very odd. The complaint about Pennsylvania is the one about observers, which seems feeble in the extreme. But even if the Pennsylvania result was reversed by a court, supposing Biden did win Arizona. Then they'd need to reverse the results in both Georgia and Nevada as well.
If they were serious about this, wouldn't they be challenging the results in other states as well?
Survation also has Tories below 40% although still beating Labour
LDs creeping up is healthy. Expect a little bit of a Tory bounce for the next week or two. Don't forget that Santa Sunak has been giving away more free stuff. And we all like free stuff.
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
All that effort and you are going to waste the proceeds on over-tannic wine?
It won't be over-tannic by the time I (or possibly the beneficiaries of my will) drink it.
You’d do better to align your buying strategy with your life expectancy?
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
Are you on the Jeroboams (previously Laytons) private client list? They have just sent out an interesting private cellar for sale. Plenty of fun and not anymore tannic wines on there!!!
You won't find a more GOP GOP legislature than Pennsylvania
“The Pennsylvania General Assembly does not have, and will not have, a hand in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election,” Pennsylvania State Senator Jake Corman, a Republican, said in an op-ed.
“To insinuate otherwise is to inappropriately set fear into the Pennsylvania electorate with an imaginary scenario not provided for anywhere in law — or in fact,” he continued.
FOX NEWS SEVERAL AIDES ARE SAYING HE SHOULD CONCEDE
Even Adolf realised the jig was up in the Bunker 1945.
My guess is that Trumps family and closest zealots are pushing the legal but perhaps as they see more senior Rs starting to distance themselves particularly as the last votes go against him and his rhetoric continues to be so inflammatory they might re-evaluate that, but somehow I doubt it. A messy few weeks ahead
The best US election story is still the GA county that had printed its ballot papers the wrong size, and was having to transcribe each of its ballots by hand onto a correctly sized piece of paper before it could go into the counting machine. For all I know they are still at it.
You won't find a more GOP GOP legislature than Pennsylvania
“The Pennsylvania General Assembly does not have, and will not have, a hand in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election,” Pennsylvania State Senator Jake Corman, a Republican, said in an op-ed.
“To insinuate otherwise is to inappropriately set fear into the Pennsylvania electorate with an imaginary scenario not provided for anywhere in law — or in fact,” he continued.
OK time for some soul searching about my betting performance on the US election.
I stuck a fiver on Trump at around 2.5-3 on bf because I didn't think it would be the overwhelming Biden majority that many were forecasting/hoping for/wishing would come and I thought that if it wasn't a huge Biden majority then Trump was in with a shout.
And I lost.
Next.
I cant believe my £2 on Kanye lost, he didn't even get a mention on CNN. Never mind, I've backed David Miliband for next PM so will win it back then.
Are you on the Jeroboams (previously Laytons) private client list? They have just sent out an interesting private cellar for sale. Plenty of fun and not anymore tannic wines on there!!!
Fox anchor asks their expert to lift up from the detail and summarise the big picture, forcing said expert to concede that things look rather better for Biden and the Dems.
On the betting, time for a critical appraisal of one's own performance and judgement.
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
All that effort and you are going to waste the proceeds on over-tannic wine?
It won't be over-tannic by the time I (or possibly the beneficiaries of my will) drink it.
You’d do better to align your buying strategy with your life expectancy?
That's a tricky one. I wouldn't want to close the trade too early!
My analysis of my own performance is simple – it was very poor.
I always bet against my own preferences, particularly when long odds are available on my political opponents. I think this is a mixture of value betting and emotional insurance.
At 3am on Wednesday morning I was feeling pretty smug about my 7.4 on Trump 270-299 (even if sick to the stomach emotionally). I stupidly let that ride far too long when the evidence coming in from Wisconsin strongly suggested that the worm was going to turn.
Again, this is a weakness of mine: I cannot allow myself to believe good political news.
As with Obama in both 2008 and 2012, I lost what was – in my rather anaemic terms – quite a lot of money.
It is true that over the years my very big wins on Trump and Brexit in 2016 probably just about offset my over-compensatory losses on successful Democrats.
However, I live and learn. I could – at the very least – hedge my emotional insurance with something more positive.
Comments
C'moooon THIS IS A BETTING SITE!
Wow they are starting to distance themselves
Thanks vm for beekeeping info - I'll check it out!
And we are THERE. He's gone.
A great great day.
PB is at its best at these times. Great punditry from a wide range of our own diverse community. This allows us to challenge our preconceptions , confirmation bias and personal beliefs. For a site like PB that is all important for turning a few shillings of profit as the greatest enemy of profit is allowing you political views to cloud your better judgement.
Well done all ...
Every vote is great
If a vote gets wasted called "illegal" by the Trump team
God gets quite irate!
100%
The implication is that some of the votes counted are no legal and should be discarded.
When Trump Tweeted "Stop the Count" he didn't actually mean to stop counting, he meant to stop counting illegal (i.e. Dem) votes.
I don't know what the next 4 years will hold. I hope it sees a return to normal life. I hope economies around the world recover and that the poorest and least well off are helped to improve their lives. I hope Boris is removed as PM to go back to being a hack for the Telegraph, or whichever paper will have him. I'd like Labour to purge its extremist tendencies and become a party that the centre will vote for in the way that Blair's labour was. But WE JUST DON'T KNOW.
PA Court Case is a hail Mary not enough votes to make a difference
Trump comments overheated
No details of large scale fraud or indeed any
Courts will consider almost all potential challenges Moot
Fox need to beef up their Security when Trumpsters blame them
This was an unusually stable election in the sense that the polls (and odds) didn't fluctuate very much. Normally in UK GEs and US elections I try to trade/hedge into a position where I make a decent profit if my central forecast is about right, but don't lose much if it's not. The stability of the odds and the persistent odds bias in favour of Trump meant that wasn't possible this time. So on election day I was unusually exposed; a Trump win (even a small one) would have cost me quite a lot, and I'd have made a very big loss if he'd won by a couple of dozen ECVs. My main bets going into Nov 3rd were straight fixed-odds bets on a Biden win, and a buy on the Biden ECV spreads/supremacy at an effective average of 284. I also had short-odd bets on Biden in Michigan, and Trump in Texas, and a small bet at just over evens on Trump in NC.
I considered, but decided against, closing the spread bet when the prices reached around 320.
Looking back, I think those bets and the decision not to close were all very reasonable on the evidence available at the time, even if with hindsight closing at 320 would have been correct.
The one thing I think I got slightly wrong was on the night when it became clear that Biden wasn't going to win FL and that the ECV total was therefore not going to be as high as I had previously thought likely. At the same time, the performance wasn't shockingly bad, so I correctly took the view that the final outcome was likely to be a more modest Biden win but probably still a win. I therefore kept my nerve and left the Biden win bets and the spread bet open (good call!), but reduced risk by effectively closing half of the spread bet on the 300-up market at 21 (ie selling on the 300-up for half of the stake on my open spread buy). That locked in half of my spread-bet profit at an effective 321 unless Biden did really badly, and it was definitely a better call than closing the main spread bet at the available price of around 305. So I think I made quite a good call, but my mistake was not selling at the whole, rather than half, of my spread buy stake. On the information available to me, and based on my assessment of what it meant, that was a mistake. I think that the reason I made it was that I still held on to an emotional attachment to the possibility of a Biden Texas win, and I didn't want to miss out on all of the upside if that happened. As someone said about shares: you should never love your bets, they won't love you back.
Still, overall, pretty good. The election will make a welcome contribution to the Nabavi claret fund, albeit smaller than some previous gigs.
JackW TOTY (Lifetime Appointment) ....
Let's see - what alternatives does he have? Brazil? Belarus?
Biden should place Johnson at the "back of the queue" where he deserves to be.
First graph: as before, red is actual UK deaths per day, with days added since the Monday graph in a lighter pink. The transparent orange is the projection of 0.67% IFR against the ONS data, lagged 19 days. Transparent grey is the same projection from the ONS data as per Monday, with a constant R increase as per the most recent data at that date up until the lockdown, at which point it declines with a rate equivalent to an R of 0.9.
On first glance, it looks discouraging - the extra deaths added since Monday (deaths taken up until the 30th of October to avoid almost all the lag) are outstripping the crude model.
However.
The latest data, when you pull out the spreadsheet they make available has amended some of the historical data. And, on top of that, the extrapolated increase has, as it turns out, levelled off.
The revised data means that a projection of 0.67% IFR lagged by 19 days no longer works for most of the time. Since late September, it has been continually lower than the actual deaths, and quite significantly so.
If we correct for the corrected ONS data and assume that the levelling off continues to the lockdown and then declines at an R of 0.9, you get this:
The added translucent yellow bars with thick outlines show the corrected projection. As can be seen, the historical deaths are consistently above the line, often considerably so.
Going to the data for the average imputed IFR over recent weeks, it now comes out at a slightly more alarming 0.85%. Redoing the model with a 0.85% IFR projection, we get this:
Some of the deaths are still above the new level, but overall it's a closer fit. It implies that deaths per day should level off at around 450 per day from about the 9th or 10th of this month. Before declining when the lockdown kicks in.
I'm actually hoping that the decline is faster than shown - if we levelled off before the lockdown kicked in, we can hope that the R inside of lockdown will be considerably lower than 0.9.
We woz robbed
“The Pennsylvania General Assembly does not have, and will not have, a hand in choosing the state’s presidential electors or in deciding the outcome of the presidential election,” Pennsylvania State Senator Jake Corman, a Republican, said in an op-ed.
“To insinuate otherwise is to inappropriately set fear into the Pennsylvania electorate with an imaginary scenario not provided for anywhere in law — or in fact,” he continued.
Trump's out on his ear if he doesn't concede
Ignoring a few minor (losing) side bets, I kept it all very simple with a hefty pre-vote bet on Biden4potus @ 1/2 which I let run.
I went to bed and missed all the betting action on the night - for better or for worse!
All in all I can’t complain.
My only real regret is missing the evens available on Biden at the height of the Hunter Biden laptop nonsense.
But perhaps you're right. Maybe Boris can try to develop a special relationship with the United States of Brazil.
The Trump campaign is taking legal action in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada - all battleground states Trump has either lost (such as the state of Michigan) or faces a tough fight to win. In each case, his campaign has loudly trumpeted the filings of suits with allegations that include counting late-arriving ballots, campaign observers not having adequate access to poll counting, and invalid votes being tabulated.
So far, the legal battle is not going well. The Trump campaign lost two suits on Thursday in Michigan and Georgia.
“They all seem to have no merit whatsoever,” said Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who focuses on elections. “I think the goal is to sow discord and distrust and undermine the people and the integrity of the election. I think giving them additional air time just plays into that theory.”
Survation also has Tories below 40% although still beating Labour
https://twitter.com/daisymcandrew/status/1324727557145677824
I wasn't planning to bet anything on this election but the 4-1 odds BetVictor gave me on Trump getting 200-249 votes was too great an offer to turn down. Especially when the bet was a bonus one.
Remarkably, it turns out we need oxygen to grow.
(just kidding, excellent work, very interesting to see how it evolves with more data)
I stuck a fiver on Trump at around 2.5-3 on bf because I didn't think it would be the overwhelming Biden majority that many were forecasting/hoping for/wishing would come and I thought that if it wasn't a huge Biden majority then Trump was in with a shout.
And I lost.
Next.
Plenty of luggage carrying devices
Pennsylvania is a mathematical lock to continue to get even better for Biden.
Georgia may well be recounted, it won't matter and Biden will still be ahead.
And the Pennsylvania legislature has signalled it won't take part in some sort of weird Electoral college coup to install Trump.
Drink well.
It all seems very odd. The complaint about Pennsylvania is the one about observers, which seems feeble in the extreme. But even if the Pennsylvania result was reversed by a court, supposing Biden did win Arizona. Then they'd need to reverse the results in both Georgia and Nevada as well.
If they were serious about this, wouldn't they be challenging the results in other states as well?
He is a disgrace
The Biden EC supremacy SPIN market. I cashed out early but up by a big number.
The ludicrously long price on Biden in the early hours. I went back into the spreads at 35
The 7/1 mixed market at PP, still looking good
And the uncalled states today. I took the 8 available on North Carolina just hours ago and it has been green since
I made some dumb trades too, but overall my book is green
https://www.centredaily.com/opinion/article246527648.html
I always bet against my own preferences, particularly when long odds are available on my political opponents. I think this is a mixture of value betting and emotional insurance.
At 3am on Wednesday morning I was feeling pretty smug about my 7.4 on Trump 270-299 (even if sick to the stomach emotionally). I stupidly let that ride far too long when the evidence coming in from Wisconsin strongly suggested that the worm was going to turn.
Again, this is a weakness of mine: I cannot allow myself to believe good political news.
As with Obama in both 2008 and 2012, I lost what was – in my rather anaemic terms – quite a lot of money.
It is true that over the years my very big wins on Trump and Brexit in 2016 probably just about offset my over-compensatory losses on successful Democrats.
However, I live and learn. I could – at the very least – hedge my emotional insurance with something more positive.
I needed a good hard slap.
It meant I had far less cash on hand when I calmed down and called PA.