UK UK General Election 2015 & GBPUSD - forecasts/predictions?

[f2calv]

Any thoughts or predictions on how the forthcoming UK General Election is going to affect cable in the run up to, during and after the big event on May 7th?

Not having been trading back during the last general election in 2010, I'd be keen to read any viewpoints on the subject, obviously increased volatility is a given... what else should we be expecting?

I read somewhere that last time around GBPUSD fluctuated by 4% on the day itself whilst the parties were struggling to form a coalition. And given that this time around there are more parties and the political situation is more disparate I'm guessing that any coalition would/could take longer to form and thus prolong this period of indecision?

 

[Trader333]

Based on history and when there is a close contest, it is likely the GBP will go down in my view.

 

[Atilla]

If Labour or Liberals dominate, cable likely to fall as they'll overspend and wreck finances.

If Tory it will strengthen as they are doing a good job.

The other parties not significant imo. Neither has anything positive to contribute but fodder for the masses.


If Greens, UKIP or SNP have any major say then we are all well and trully skewered!
Uncertainty will prevail and currency will tank.


I'm switching from greens to Tory :smart:

 

[Pat494]

What a load of duds imho
So it comes down to the least worse.
Mansion Tax - yuk, ridiculous politics of envy which should destroy many fine old heritage houses. Guaranteed huge over spending as usual.
Cameron's 4 more Trident submarines - how many terrorists does he expect to swat with those ?

I won't be voting

The swing ? A big drop if Labour + SNP get in.

 

[f2calv]

OK thanks for the input - I was hoping for less politics and more on trade timings. I guess that is the usual planning, more planning and planning some more. As ever no silver bullet :/

Pat I agree with all your comments.

*really* don't see the point in Trident, who's going to be the one who actually wants to press the "end of the world" button? ...only likelihood in my opinion is a terrorist with a [missing] Soviet-era backpack nuke, happy thoughts.

Tories - a referendum on EU membership - do I trust the UK population as a whole to make the right/my choice, nope.

SNP - great article in the FT today, "The SNP has no interest in my country’s success. It cares only about what it can extract from us"

Labour - Miliband as prime minister? I didn't much think David Cameron would be PM material, but Miliband, really?!?

bah I want to vote but finding the least worst option is nigh on impossible :/

 

[alexaherself]

If Labour or Liberals dominate, cable likely to fall

I was thinking old Vince might be relatively safe, actually: Cleggie's constituency is much more marginal.

 

[neil324]

Vince Cable? Think they meant cable/GBPUSD. Sarcasm maybe

Anyone know why when the Tories & Labour are neck and neck in the polls on 34% each it translates to Labour having 20 more seats than the Tories.

First past the post system?

 

[Trader333]

Anyone know why when the Tories & Labour are neck and neck in the polls on 34% each it translates to Labour having 20 more seats than the Tories.

Because the UK system is not based on proportional representation. So you can have a Tory win a seat with a majority of 30K and lose in another area to Labour who win by just 1K votes

 

[Mr. Charts]

Lib Dems to drop their knickers to the highest bidder.

Nicola StirThem is the best politician though I despise her extreme Left hatreds, even more than I despise Nigel's Farrago of anti-immigrant hatreds (though I do get his resentment as far as Natalie Bennett is concerned).

Wood and Bennett would benefit from being equipped with at least two brain cells, even if they share them.

But Cable in = cable down

 

[alexaherself]

Because the UK system is not based on proportional representation. So you can have a Tory win a seat with a majority of 30K and lose in another area to Labour who win by just 1K votes

Respectfully, I don't think this (although perfectly true) in itself accounts for the discrepancy at all: you could, after all, have a Labour seat with a large majority while losing in another area to a Conservative winning by just 1k votes.

The electoral and political pundits seem to be more or less agreed that even after the last round of boundary changes, the Conservatives would need to be about 2.5% ahead of Labour in the total vote, to win the same number of seats.

I think the main reasons for the discrepancy are (and probably in this order of importance, too) ...

(i) Labour benefits more from tactical anti-Conservative voting than the Conservatives do from tactical anti-Labour voting: it's quite a bit harder for the Conservatives to win seats with a vote share of around 35-40% because of the centre-left effectively pooling its support, to some extent, whereas Labour can much more easily win seats with that share of the vote owing to a lower level of tactical voting against it (at the moment, this factor seems to be a much bigger and more significant one with each successive election);

(ii) Labour gets fewer "wasted" votes than the Conservatives do (votes for candidates who don't win and candidates who have already won 50 per cent of the vote effectively don't count as they're not relevant to the number of seats a party wins) - I've seen it said that about 1.75 million of the 10.5 million votes won by the Conservatives in 2010 were "wasted" in that they simply increased further the party's majority in "already-Conservative" seats;

(iii) Turnout is lower, overall, in traditionally Labour-held seats than in traditionally Conservative-held ones (i.e. seats requiring fewer votes, to be won);

(iv) Labour has a greater preponderance of seats with a smaller electorate (this also favours Labour for a very similar reason).

 

[neil324]

What ever the methodogly they use it's complex and prone to errors surely.

Today's poll has,

Libdems 7% of votes = 40 seats
UKIP 14% of votes = 2 seats

 

[Pat494]

What ever the methodogly they use it's complex and prone to errors surely.

Today's poll has,

Libdems 7% of votes = 40 seats
UKIP 14% of votes = 2 seats

That can't be right can it ?
Are you sure it wasn't 17% for LIbDems ?

 

[neil324]

That can't be right can it ?
Are you sure it wasn't 17% for LIbDems ?

Opps, was looking at SNP (they are the same colour in the charts):smart:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gen...lection-polls-Labour-take-one-point-lead.html

Libdems 9% of votes = 15 seats
UKIP 14% of votes = 2 seats

 

[TechQuant]

Any thoughts or predictions on how the forthcoming UK General Election is going to affect cable in the run up to, during and after the big event on May 7th?

Not having been trading back during the last general election in 2010, I'd be keen to read any viewpoints on the subject, obviously increased volatility is a given... what else should we be expecting?

I read somewhere that last time around GBPUSD fluctuated by 4% on the day itself whilst the parties were struggling to form a coalition. And given that this time around there are more parties and the political situation is more disparate I'm guessing that any coalition would/could take longer to form and thus prolong this period of indecision?

I think there will be no definitive link between what cable does and what is going on in respect of the election. I also think the talking heads will find any number of 'causal' links between the comedy of the hustings, the election day itself and the result and nobody will have any basis to challenge any of these views as each is as likely/unlikely as the other.

My personal view is that cable will be largely ignorant of it all and will gyrate along the same route it would have done had there been no election taking place.

My two favourite quotes from the debacle so far:-

1. From the leader of the Raving Loony party - "UKIP are taking votes from us".

2. Anon - "The party that has impressed me the most with their zeal, obvious hunger for power and the ability to go out there and make the effort is the one that has put up their placard in virtually every street I've driven down right across the length and breadth of the country. Yes, I'm voting Bus Stop."

 

[alexaherself]

Libdems 9% of votes = 15 seats

IMHO, even with only 8-9% of the vote, the Lib Dems would get considerably more than 15 seats: nationwide polls never take into account the extent of the "local goodwill factor" to individual Lib Dem sitting MP's.

This is partly a long-term historical factor, since the Lib Dems have a considerable record (compared with the main parties) for local grass-roots campaigning, council seats and so on, and there are distinct pockets of Lib Dem support which traditionally defy national trends.

I suspect that this time there'll also be a much more recent, short-term effect (suggesting the same outcome) in that many Lib Dem sitting MP's have never before been "in the news" so much as at this election: the proportion of Lib Dem MP's who have held ministerial office at some point over the last five years is enormous, compared with those from the main parties at previous general elections. This can also only help them locally, on voting day, I think.

Regarding "likely seat numbers" for Lib Dems, Nationalists, UKIP and the Greens, I think Lord Ashcroft's local polling is likely to be far more reliably indicative than the nationwide polls now performed daily by the big polling companies.

Betfair's pre-election market - which of course takes updated polling information into account - suggests about 25/26 Lib Dem seats, rather than 15. On this subject, I trust that perspective a lot more than the Telegraph's.

 

[neil324]

IMHO, even with only 8-9% of the vote, the Lib Dems would get considerably more than 15 seats: nationwide polls never take into account the extent of the "local goodwill factor" to individual Lib Dem sitting MP's.

This is partly a long-term historical factor, since the Lib Dems have a considerable record (compared with the main parties) for local grass-roots campaigning, council seats and so on, and there are distinct pockets of Lib Dem support which traditionally defy national trends.

I suspect that this time there'll also be a much more recent, short-term effect (suggesting the same outcome) in that many Lib Dem sitting MP's have never before been "in the news" so much as at this election: the proportion of Lib Dem MP's who have held ministerial office at some point over the last five years is enormous, compared with those from the main parties at previous general elections. This can also only help them locally, on voting day, I think.

Regarding "likely seat numbers" for Lib Dems, Nationalists, UKIP and the Greens, I think Lord Ashcroft's local polling is likely to be far more reliably indicative than the nationwide polls now performed daily by the big polling companies.

Betfair's pre-election market - which of course takes updated polling information into account - suggests about 25/26 Lib Dem seats, rather than 15. On this subject, I trust that perspective a lot more than the Telegraph's.

They work out the number of seats from the poll by this,

http://electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

Nothing to do with who done the poll. Ashcroft's polls would go through the same algorithm, his last poll has libdems on 9% also.

 

[Atilla]

fwiw guys there is trader talk that the Tories winning the election has a greater downside risk to Cable than Labour & SNP coalition.

Eyes have turned towards the European referendum promised by Cameron. It is perceived that this will lead to greater uncertainty and risk for the pound if Conservatives in particular with UKIP get to exercise control.

Going to be awfully messy so it would seem either way.

I think cable may well test the 1.42 regions sooner or later.

 

[tomorton]

I think time has come for me to get back into GBP/USD's downtrend.

We're unlikely to have a secure sole governing party, making the new administration's actions very hard to estimate. This can't be bullish. Looking back over recent election years, we normally run down towards voting day.

On the charts, we've just confirmed a weak and low swing high, showing a shooting star / pin bar pattern, and we're going lower today. Apart from some EUR pairs, this is weakest pair by my TA criteria.

 

[Pat494]

I think time has come for me to get back into GBP/USD's downtrend.

We're unlikely to have a secure sole governing party, making the new administration's actions very hard to estimate. This can't be bullish. Looking back over recent election years, we normally run down towards voting day.

On the charts, we've just confirmed a weak and low swing high, showing a shooting star / pin bar pattern, and we're going lower today. Apart from some EUR pairs, this is weakest pair by my TA criteria.

See what you mean. But glancing at the chart - it seems to be of the same opinion and done the drop already ?

 

[Pat494]

How about a big shake up and have a punt on UKIP for 30+ seats ?