Trump Infection and Prediction Markets

Watch prediction markets to learn about volatility in crowd-sourced forecasts.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!

I suspect a ploy. I guess “we’ll see what happens.”

What can we learn in the near term? Let’s use this as a learning experience to see how announcements like this affect prediction markets. It will be a good study of volatility in forecasting.

Here’s a screenshot of PredictIt’s election market outcome.

I’m not reading too much into this yet. Will be interesting to see how the time series looks over the next few days, particularly in terms of volume.

According to PredictIt, the market hit the hardest was the timing of the supreme court confirmation.

PredictIt @PredictIt

One of the biggest immediate moves in the prediction markets: timing of SCOTUS confirmation is expected to be pushed after Election Day. predictit.org/markets/detail… #TrumpHasCovid #Barrett

Related

This gem from last year is a good thing to reread: Nassim Taleb’s Case Against Nate Silver Is Bad Math. I bring it up because some of the insights from that forecasting debate are relevant to thinking about prediction markets as engines for crowd-sourced forecasts.

Thoughts?