(NewsNation) — Election bets are reportedly slow among Wall Street professionals who are avoiding putting their money on a tight presidential race that comes to a head in less than four weeks.
“Never bet on the flip of a coin,” George Ball, head of the Houston-based investment firm Sanders Morris Harris, told Bloomberg. “The election is too close to permit thoughtful investment positioning.”
New surveys in the presidential race put all seven swing states within the margins of error or tied between the two candidates.
Trump leads Harris by 4 points in Florida: Survey
The Hill and Decision Desk HQ’s presidential forecast has Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a “lockstep,” but Harris has a slight edge over the former president. Decision Desk HQ deems the race a “coin-flip contest.”
Over on Wall Street, the odds aren’t clear enough for a winning bet.
Hedge funds are waiting it out before making an investment, and options traders are more focused on the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cuts, Bloomberg reported, rather than betting on the Nov. 5 election.
“It’s much easier to discern the investment impact of a Fed interest-rate cut than a hazy statement from the Trump or Harris campaigns,” Jonathan Caplis, chief executive officer of hedge fund research firm PivotalPath, told Bloomberg.
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Election bets among retail investors have been rolling in since a federal appeals court lifted an injunction that had blocked startup company Kalshi from offering contracts on the election. The ruling cleared the way for betting to resume while the court further considers the underlying issues in the case.
As of Wednesday, more than $3 million had been wagered on contracts on Kalshi’s site, CNBC reported.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is a government agency trying to prevent election betting, and the appeals court said it could reconsider a ban if the commission provides new evidence of serious harm to the public interest in the coming weeks.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
