Will Winston go today?

Just before 10pm last night, iPredict launched a single day contract PETERS.SEPT17 on whether Winston Peters would be sacked or would resign on this day, September 17, after the testimony of Brian Henry delivered yesterday. This contract will close after midnight tonight - or sooner - depending on today's events.

The Prime Minister has previously said developments in the Privileges Committee hearing yesterday would have to be 'devastating' for Mr Peters to be sacked.

Yesterday's trading on our PETERS.RESIGN contract, which pays $1 per contract if Mr Peters is sacked as Foreign Minister any time before the election, suggests the testimony was at the very least highly relevant to Mr Peters future. The price for PETERS.RESIGN fluctuated hugely throughout the day as Mr Henry delivered his testimony yesterday morning, varying between 36 cents and 78 cents before midday.

The Dominion Post this morning speculates today might be the day for Mr Peters:

Miss Clark could dismiss Mr Peters as soon as today after his lawyer, Brian Henry, told the privileges committee yesterday he spoke to him seconds before e-mailing bank account details to Mr Glenn for a $100,000 donation... Miss Clark was being briefed on Mr Henry's evidence by her deputy, Michael Cullen, who sits on the committee. His assessment of whether Mr Peters' version of events is credible will be crucial in her decision on whether he stays as a minister.

Absent news, we should expect to see what we saw last week when we ran our first single day stock, ANNOUNCE.SEPT12. This stock paid $1 if and only if the election date was announced that day. Prices for that contract were at around 30 cents at 8:30am i.e. 30 percent chance of the election being called, but by 11:00am, prices had dipped to just 14 cents.

At about that time, the Prime Minister's office announced an unscheduled press conference, and all hell broke loose: ANNOUNCE.SEPT12 had soared to 90 cents at 12:30 as the press conference was about to start, and closed about 99 cents when the Prime Minister confirmed the reason for the press conference was to announce the election date - and not to sack Mr Peters.

Will we see another unscheduled press conference called today?