Why Karl Rove Is Worried
From some random ex-lawyer and arbitrage-gamer named Barry L. Ritholtz who somehow got the idea he should drop links to his latest blog entries in my inbox… (Update: the foregoing was intended as humor. Barry L. Ritholtz is welcome to drop stuff in my inbox anytime.) Anyway, here’s a discussion of an interesting (subscription-required, sadly) article in Barron’s Online, showing that at least for the moment, the electoral map seems to be leaning more Kerry’s way than Bush’s: Projected electoral college vote, 2004.
Apparently the solid-blue states have gotten bluer, the solid-red states have gotten redder, but in the all-important purplish states, blueness is winning out over redness.
Yee ha.
March 3rd, 2004 at 9:29 am
arbitrage-gamer? What the hell is that? ; )
March 3rd, 2004 at 9:42 am
Oh, apologies for being so obscure. I was referring to the following from your cv page:
“Subsequently, Mr. Ritholtz developed and implemented proprietary analytical criteria for automated equities trading. This led to the design of a computerized arbitrage program to take advantages of price discrepancies between Regional Exchanges and the New York Stock Exchange. The program was successful enough that it forced the Regional Exchanges to modify their trading and membership rules so as to thwart any future programmed arbitrage trading.”
This struck me as kind of funny, because some friends of mine have been involved, off and on, in a project to do computerized foreign exchange trading (see http://www.moneyhackers.com/ ).
March 3rd, 2004 at 10:25 am
Oh, that! That was so, like, 1995.
The problem with arbitrage of that kind (indeed, most arbs) is they are based upon small but relatively persistent inefficiencies — which have a tendency to get pretty efficient pretty fast.
But it was good learning experience, using networked PCs (almost but not quite neural networks) to find and exploit small price differences between markets.
Now, I’m just another jackass with an opinion on pretty much everything . . .