Idol Bets

The American Idol market has spoken.

David Cook is now a huge favorite in the eyes of the WSEX American Idol market investors.  This season has been interesting.  Cook should have been a favorite from the first or second week once the top 24 started.  Instead, Archuleta was a MASSIVE favorite, buying around 55 or so from what I can recall.  That early in the season it can be very hard to predict who is going to run deep and Archuleta was an extremely safe bet to go far.  However, he was never a great favorite to win in my eyes.  Pretty much everything I thought of back then that would prevent him from winning came out from then until now:  his annoying personality, lack of versatility, lack of taste, etc.  Meanwhile, Cook was rated pretty low back then and it was pretty obvious (to me at least) that he was going to be a goldmine in the markets.  He crept up from 3, to 7, to 11, to 20, to 30, to 40, and got up around 57 last week.  After a solid performance last night where he sang three songs well, with one of them being a bit outside his comfort zone, he’s now ballooned up to 71-76.

A lot of this market surge has to do with the past two weeks’ DialIdol numbers.  Cook has been the clear leader two weeks in a row.  It’s safe to assume the market thinks he’ll have a strong showing in the finals.   A few weeks ago I mentioned that Cook could struggle in the finals the same way Blake Lewis did last year.  I actually don’t think that’s going to happen.  Cook doesn’t have the same downfalls that Lewis had.  Lewis didn’t have a particularly strong voice and needs to have the right type of song to sound good.  I don’t think Cook has those problems.

I’m actually going to suggest picking up a couple shares of Syesha in the SimPicks.  Although DialIdol has her going home, she made up some ground last week and Archuleta really sucked last night.  Her shares can be purchased for $2, so pick up 8 of the for $16 and hope she can make in through.  It’s a small amount of money to invest and if she somehow beats the odds and passes up Archuleta tonight, SimPicks guarantee s a final value of $800 with the 8 shares of Cook and 8 shares of Syesha.