If there is genius in crowds, then the internet prediction market Intrade might be the smartest website of all. The online prediction service gives the individual mandate no more than a 30% shot to survive, although the late money coming in appears to be breaking for maintaining the mandate. Nate Silver on why we might get a rude surprise from SCOTUS today: After these oral arguments, Intrade's betting shifted dramatically. Quickly, the chance of the mandate's being overturned climbed to about 65 percent from 35 percent at the market. The odds of the mandate's being overturned have fluctuated some since then, but have risen even further in the past few weeks, according to the market. Is such a large shift in sentiment justified? In my view, probably not. This may be another case of traders being overconfident about the value of their information, a property which has also been observed in the stock market. To be clear, the evidence is that oral arguments do have some predictive...(Read Full Post)