First, we have a contract, US.BNKE.2FEB, that pays off at $1 if Ben Bernanke is reappointed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve on or before 11:59 PM 2 February. That contract is now at $0.57: a 57% chance that Bernanke is reappointed.
Next, we have two conditional
US.NOTBNKE.DOW pays out at 1 cent for each 20 points the Dow closes above 9500 on 2 February if and only if Bernanke is NOT reappointed.
US.BNKE.DOW pays out as above, but only if Bernanke IS reappointed.
The current prices [updated 9:30] are $0.39 for Dow | Confirmation and $0.18 for Dow |~Confirmation. Since p(Confirmation) is 0.57, the prices are reckoning on a Dow at 10,868 if he's confirmed and 10,337 if he's not. The Dow's now at 10,603. So, the market's not figuring on much of a move either way.
Good job Matt on getting these out! I'd love to see some on housing prices conditional on a land tax and unemployment rates conditional on the various minimum wage stocks.
