St. Mary's College of Maryland
Political Stock Market

  {Under construction} Experimental political stock markets have been run in several classes for various semesters.  Summary results are listed below.

2004 PRIMARY ELECTIONS

  This market began somewhat late, and had an insufficient participants.

              Kerry       Kerry     Other
              early         late
------------------------------------
13 Feb   0.25         0.25        0.25
20 Feb   0.33         0.25        0.25
27 Feb   0.37         0.33        0.25
05 Mar   0.45         0.37       0.21
12 Mar   0.45         0.37       0.21
19 Mar  0.45          0.37       0.21 (Spring break)

2002 ELECTIONS

     An experimental political stock market was run in classes in Autumn of 2002. Three securities were available. The securities represent the outcome of the races for the U.S. Senate in November 2002. The market opened 7 October 2003. It closed 7 November.
    The first security represents a "Republican majority" scenario. It would have paid $1 if there were 51 or more seats won by the Republican. It would have paid $0 otherwise.   The second security represents the "Republicans not a majority" scenario. It would have $1 if there were 50 or fewer Republican seats. It would have paid $0 otherwise.  The third security represents a "close outcome" scenario. It would have paid $1 if there were between 48 and 52 seats, inclusive, won by the Republicans.  It would have paid $0 otherwise.

Closing prices were:
              Security      1              2             3     
              29 Sept      0.56       0.32         0.01
              10 Oct        0.56       0.35         0.05 
              17 Oct        0.50        0.35        0.05 
              24 Oct        0.26        0.38        0.42
              05 Nov       0.22        0.38        0.50
              07 Nov        0.34        0.01        0.54

      Republican Majority (Security 1) and Close Election (Security 3) paid $1 while Republicans Not A Majority (Security 2) paid $0. The market was maintained by Walter Hill wwhill@smcm.edu.  The last modification was on 30 October 2003.

2000 ELECTION

    An experimental stock market was run in classes in Autumn 2000.  There were 3 securities: 1) A close Bush victory, 2) A close Gore victory, 3) A landslide.  Winning a close election meant the candidate won the popular vote with under 52 percent of the two party vote.  A landslide was all other outcomes.