I’d bet with my heart and not my head. I never could bring myself to bet against England or Chelsea.

But politics, especially US politics, is another matter. I love the US presidential elections. From this side of the Atlantic, distant from the fight, I can make dispassionate bets. For the second presidential election running I amused myself by trading on the Intrade political futures markets.

You trade contracts with other members of the exchange. If a candidate wins the contract is worth $10 if he/ she lose it is worth nothing. You do not have to hold a contract till the end, so you can change positions whenever you want.

For instance, after Sarah Palin made her appearance at the Republican convention, the odds swung for McCain, I sold McCain and bought Obama .When the Palin bounce evaporated, I bought McCain and sold Obama, making a nice profit. This strategy reduced the amount I had at risk on election night to an acceptable level.

Maybe there was some market manipulation going on. Perhaps McCain supporters were trying to create momentum by forcing his price up. Compared to what was spent on TV advertising it would have been a cheep way to create buzz.

Or maybe it was irrational exuberance of GOP supporters in the market. Either way, I did rather well out of it. You can see the results below.

I did similarly well in the primaries.

This is a truly historic moment for the US and the world. I have avoided any analysis on TV or on-line. I want to get my own thoughts in order first. This could be one of the most important election results in my lifetime.

I stayed up until 02:30 this morning watching the results come in. I went to bed shortly after Pennsylvania was called for Obama, then a senior Republican strategist all but conceded, so I figured it was all over.

I have been a fan of Obama since I saw an early appearance of his on The Daily Show. A charismatic, able young African American, but what impressed me most was that he sounded reasonable. Missing were the straw man arguments, the false choices, the mysticism and the bullying.

He has continued to impress me over the last year or so. He strikes me as someone who is truly interested infinding solutions, rather than the usual peddling of interests.

There can be no doubt that the USA has firmly ended the Bush era, but what next? There is a feeling of possibilities. Paths have opened up that were never present in the Bush / Blair years.

Perhaps most importantly, the US will regain some of its self-confidence, and some of its moral capital. There will be opportunities to rebuild and strengthen the Atlantic alliance. The problems we face are global ones, they require global solutions.

Change I can believe in? I am willing to give it a go.