Exponent not working normally

Question

I am working in python 2.6. Can anyone figure out why my variable squared does not calculate properly when it is inside a min() function? To illustrate, I show the variable**2 performed by itself, works fine. Here is the code, followed by some results:

from __future__ import with_statement
import csv, re, time
timestr = time.strftime("%Y%m%d_%H%M%S")

fileinput = 'mp_20130822.csv'
out = open('output2.csv',"wb")
writer = csv.writer(out, delimiter = ',')

ESPmax = 100.00
dynmax = "enabled"

def config():
    global argument
    if z>30:
        argument = "T"
    else:
        argument = "F"

with open(fileinput,'rU') as inputfile:
    reader = csv.reader(inputfile, delimiter = ';')
    for line in reader:
            line = re.split(",| ",line[0])
            side = str(line[4]) #is "Bid" or "Ask"
            e = float(line[5])
            z = float(line[6])
            t = float(line[33])
            FW = float(line[34])
            FS = max(float(line[35]),200)
            if FW == 0:
                continue
            if (FS == 0) or (FS == 1):
                continue
            if side == "Ask":
                LE = t-e
            else:
                LE = e-t
            LEP = LE/(FW/2)
            ESP = z/(FS/2)
            if dynmax == "enabled":
                ESPmax = min(LEP**2,ESPmax)

    config()
    if (argument == "T"):
        print ('side, e, z, t, FW, FS')
        print ('LEP,LEP,ESPmax')
        print (side, '%.2f'%e, '%.2f'%z, '%.2f'%t, '%.2f'%FW, '%.2f'%FS)
        print ('%.3f'%LEP,'%.3f'%LEP,'%.5f'%ESPmax)
        print '%.5f'%(LEP*LEP)

RESULTS:

side, e, z, t, FW, FS
LEP,LEP,ESPmax
('Ask', '1.90', '50.00', '1.95', '0.24', '651.00')
('0.423', '0.423', '0.00130')
0.17880
side, e, z, t, FW, FS
LEP,LEP,ESPmax
('Ask', '8.40', '40.00', '8.43', '0.17', '4933.00')
('0.348', '0.348', '0.00130')
0.12145
side, e, z, t, FW, FS
LEP,LEP,ESPmax
('Ask', '8.40', '40.00', '8.43', '0.17', '4919.00')
('0.370', '0.370', '0.00130')
0.13667

Answer 1

The indentation is clearly a SyntaxError in Python, so its unclear what your code actually does. Though I'm pretty sure that you somehow manage to assign 0.00130 to ESPmax, and once you get there the

ESPmax = min(LEP**2,ESPmax)

line will not change ESPmax for your values of LEP.