Political stock pickers putting more money on Reid lately

Forget the dead heat polls and the pundits.

Political stock pickers are betting on U.S. Sen. Harry Reid to beat his GOP challenger Sharron Angle.

At least lately, although trading on the close race has shown a lot of volatility since summer.

Reid's stock closed Monday at 58 on the intrade.com website, giving the Democratic incumbent a 58 percent chance of winning come Nov. 2.

That's way up from Reid's chances before Angle won the GOP primary on June 8 -- but it's also below his peak price of nearly 63 in late July.

Meanwhile, Angle's stock closed at 44 on Monday, giving her a 44 percent chance of beating Reid. That's down from her peak of about 56 percent in late June.

The ups and down on the political stock ticker have closely followed the ups and downs in the close Reid-Angle race.

The unpopular Reid's stock had dipped to 23 in May as polls showed he would likely lose to his still yet-to-be-decided GOP opponent.

But Reid's stock shot up to 50 shortly after Angle won and skeptics began questioning whether the Tea Party conservative could win a general election.

The race has been volatile ever since, moving up and down like a fever chart as Reid and Angle tangled on the campaign trail and in TV ads.

Reid's stock rose throughout most of July as he pummeled Angle and she worked to raise money and hire top-flight campaign help. She saw her stock dip to just below 40.

Angle has made a bit of a comeback while Reid's stock has dropped a bit, but he's currently the clear favorite among the betting class.

With the election seven weeks away, trading on the top-ticket race is sure to heat up with nearly 7,000 transactions so far.

• Follow this link to the intrade.com page showing chart from trading on Reid.

• Follow this link to the chart showing trading on Republican/Angle.