Can we make money if the polls are right?

There is a website which I peruse regularly called politicalbetting.com. The folk there seem to make a nice turn on betting on all sorts of elections. A very insightful bunch they all are and I wish them well.

The challenge though is that going to a bookie to place a bet is not a fair game. The bookie can refuse large bets and indeed, refuse to take the bets. As such I think to make an decent money a lot of money has to be sunk into the game a long way ahead of time.

Where investment is unlimited is in the equity and and forex markets. Here you can invest what you like in split seconds and trade out seconds later too.

The recent polls point to a very hung Parliament. In fact, Election Forecast appears to have it that no Government will  be formed at all. The Tories on 280 and Labour on 260 mean the SNP can prevent any Government being formed.

My take on this is thus:

- The Pound will weaken 2-3% on this news as it emerges at the end of next week. The Pound has been rising the past month, so for once I can't see that Government instability it priced in. 

- Similarly the UK markets, up at all time highs when the chances are a very left wing socialist coalition will get into power or alternatively that no Government will be formed.

The markets tend to look at past performance and the UK has not had Government formation problems for some time. I am not suggesting there will be a crash, but a couple of hundred points off the FTSE and a small decline in the Pound throws up some interesting potential.

I am on a long dollar/ short pound ETF for starters. Just thinking about which sector will do the worst, likely energy utilities and banks I would imagine?

Anyone interested in following this strategy?

Will Tsipras win the election for Cameron?

I come back from abroad for a couple of weeks and realise there is a complete left-wing take-over of the UK in prospect! Blimey!

The first thing I see is a group hug on the telly of three loony-left non-English women all high fiving because they have been discussing magic money tree economics and saying Farage is a racist and Tories eat babies.

It's like a form of weird time travel to the early 1980's militant timezone.

Worse for the forces of the Right, the Tories seem to have forgotten about sound money and campaigning on their successful(ish) economic record in favour of attacking a Labour and the SNP - which just by doing so is giving them more legitimacy.

Even weirder in this bizarre world, the opinion polls which now appear daily like cluster bombs, are showing precisely no changes to anything with all the Parties stuck on around the same likely voting figures for months on end. The very definition of hot air.

So we await a so-called 'Black Swan' an event to change the dynamic of the election. As ever, this can be anything from a major disaster to a Foreign Policy issue or even a Royal Baby.

The only one I can foresee happening is the rapid end to the Greek stand-off. Domestically the Greek government is very popular just at the time when the EU is rallying to Germany's side. The QE in Europe has sucked up so much of the bond market that there is confidence that a Grexit could be contained and managed.

This may be misplaced, maybe not. Certainly I do not believe a 10% fall in UK GDP from Grexit that some of the madder Euro-enthusiasts like to spout.

However, the money is due to run out in Greece in mid-May and even now the Government is hoovering up money from local authorities to try and keep the salaries and pensions paid. This is desperate stuff an may not work.

A sudden Grexit or the panicky build up to it in Early May would surely be a big boost for the Tories - on a no change and sound economic management platform - maybe enough to get them to largest party with a minority Government. Logically, UKIP should  benefit to as the overall insanity of the EU is exposed further for the damage it is doing to constituent member countries who happen not to be Germany.

It's a sad state of affairs for right wingers that we are left hoping for this to avoid a Communist take-over...