Prediction market odds rising that Geithner will go

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The odds on whether U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will leave by the end of June increased over the last week in a political prediction market, but traders still gave it only a small chance of happening.

On the Dublin-based Intrade (www.intrade.com/) prediction market, traders on Friday gave Geithner a 16 percent chance of leaving before midnight on June 30. While that is down from a spike of 20 percent on Thursday, the odds have risen since traders had an 8 percent expectation on March 13.

Geithner has been caught in a public firestorm over government bailouts of financial firms after those companies paid employees huge bonuses. President Barack Obama has repeatedly expressed confidence in his Treasury Secretary.

The political prediction market in the presidential race last year had shown betting shifting toward Obama from Republican rival John McCain as public opinion polls also began to favor Obama.

Contracts on the political prediction exchanges are structured so trading prices are expressed as a percent likelihood of an event occurring.

Studies have show the predictive power of the markets is comparable to that of opinion polls.

(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Philip Barbara)