Peters fan!

In the last 5 minutes, MP.Peters jumped from about 17% to about 22%. Prices didn't move in VOTE.NZFirst or in Peters.Tauranga. So somebody knows something we don't (perhaps about Ron Mark's chances), or a Peters partisan just wanted to buy a lot of stake in it in a hurry. I'm shorting in response, but has anybody seen any decent polling on Ron Mark's chances?

Addendum
If Vote.National is right at 0.4917 and Vote.Act is right at $0.3467, then PM.National ought to be closer to $0.94 than $0.79. One side of the equation is wrong. Which one?

Do Scandals Help With Re-Election?

During an interview with MP Winston Peters this morning, Radio NZ put it to him that the publicity generated by new developments in the Owen Glenn saga would assist in Mr Peters' re-election. Mr Peters replied by saying stories like this never help.

So what does iPredict say?

iPredict has been running a contract MP.PETERS asking whether Mr Peters will be returned to Parliament. This contract pays $1 if Mr Peters remains in Parliament by any means after the election, and movements in the price this contract trades for over the past 36 hours gives us an answer.

The answer, in this case, is no. Mr Peters' re-election chances are not helped by the publicity produced by these developments, as indicated by a decline in the price of MP.PETERS.

These developments have been accompanied by an increase in the chance of Mr Peters' sacking, up from 10% two days ago to 15% this morning - a significant increase starting from a small base but Mr Peters sacking or resignation from his position as Foreign Affairs minister before the election remains a one in six chance according to iPredict traders.