The oddly fickle (and spookily accurate ) political-futures markets have made some bizarre predictions . Anyone betting against Ron Paul or Al Gore to become president stood to make a lot of money. There was also a big Giuliani-for-VP upswing last week, for no apparent reason.
In the same tradition, a friend points out that today around noon, the Bill Richardson for Vice President stock doubled on InTrade —and it’s unclear why. Buzz about a potential Richardson endorsement has been building for the past week. If Richardson endorses Obama and Obama does better than expected among Texas Latinos, the New Mexico governor could plausibly take some credit.
But nothing particularly game-changing has happened today—has it? Maybe some insider knowledge has leaked to traders but not to the rest of us? (Shouldn’t insider trading be against the rules, anyway?)
Who knows, maybe Richardson himself just bought up a bunch of shares and plans to endorse.
Check out Slate ‘s “Political Futures” page here .
