I’ve installed a predictions quote board on the right side of this page. If you’re not familiar with the concept, this is a real time, real-money display of market odds percentages generated by people betting on various events — in this case political and world events that might interest readers of this blog. Odds generated by groups of people wagering their own money in this way have a generally good predictive record as compared to predictions made by individuals.
Click on the board to learn more about odds markets for particular events, or to open a trading account with the board’s sponsor. (Chicagoboyz receives a royalty for business generated via our board.)
Also, please let me know if you want me to add a particular market. The ones up there now are just a few that I thought would be generally interesting.
Cool !
You the man Jonathan.
Admiral Poindexter was ahead of his time. (well… at least ahead of politicians anyways)
Does the “Arafat departs/vacates Israel and the Palestinian territories by Jun 30” contract include his vile immortal sole departing, or are we limited to his body moving while he’s, ya know, still alive?
In-Cog, I am merely trying to follow the market here.
DARPA has generated some good ideas. Unhappily, the risk-futures market, a good idea, got slammed politically, while the data-mining scheme, a flawed idea, seems to make steady progress despite public opposition.
Cap’n, that’s a good question. I assume that the set of all departure possibilities includes the possibility of Arafat’s death, but my assumption does not seem to be reflected in the fine print on the Intrade site. I’ll inquire.
Following up the question about Arafat:
“These contracts will expire at 100 if for any reason, under any
circumstances Yasser Arafat no longer resides/domiciled in Israel & the
Palestinian Territories by(i.e. on or before) 11:59pm EST on the specific
date.”
See my comment on The Great Chicago Meteor of 2003 for some natural-disaster, or semi-natural semi-disaster, events. There are plenty of more purely terrestrial possibilities involving earthquakes, hurricanes, etc affecting named major cities. (I note that Chicago itself appears relatively immune to earthquakes and hurricanes, heh.)
Yes, terrestrial events could be a fruitful category, as I noted in my response to your comments at your meteor post.
BTW, I’m not sure that Chicago is immune to earthquakes. Certainly it is vulnerable to political disasters.
Ok, so, it sounds like a really good idea.
But I’m getting blank cells under “Contract” in IE, Avant, and Netscape.
The cell color appears as a light blue/grey/teal. Maybe there’s a setting on my computer that’s getting rid of the Contract name font color…but I thought I should mention it in case it affects more than just me.
Ian, thanks for the feedback. I have no problem seeing the contract names or quotes in IE 6 or Mozilla Firefox. NS 4.7 doesn’t work. I haven’t tried a modern NS or any other browser.
I assume that you tried the obvious stuff like clearing caches and checking security settings.
Are you behind a firewall? If so, I wonder if it blocks the intrade.com server. But I’m just guessing, I don’t know.
If you’re up for it, you might contract Intrade at “help@intrade.com” or by telephoning 866-303-1929 (before 4PM CST). If you do that, I’d be grateful if you could let us know what you learn.
Bingo.
I have Norton Internet Security running on my machine. Turning it off lets me see the quote board.
My taste for risk with internet viruses is low, but I’ll be sure to check it out from time to time.
Very cool feature, though.
That is, the board is a cool feature. The firewall from NIS is too, but…anyway.
Thanks for the update. I’m glad that you resolved the problem.
Perhaps it’s possible to configure Norton to let the Intrade info through.
What’s the story on a “terror alert Red” on April 30?
The odds of a Homeland Security red alert on that date.
Forgive my naivete, but does this mean if I buy a Bush to be re-elected contract for $59 now, and come November ’04 Bush is re-elected, I collect $100?
Forgive my naivete, but does this mean if I buy a Bush to be re-elected contract for $59 now, and come November ’04 Bush is re-elected, I collect $100?
G&G, that is a good question. The contract price 59 reflects the market odds of a Bush victory. If you bought at 59 and held your position until the election, you would make $(41 x tic size x number of contracts – fees) if Bush wins and lose $(59 x tic size x number of contracts + fees) if he loses. (The signs of these results would be reversed if you went short instead of buying.) However, you are not obliged to hold your position until the election; you can liquidate it at any time to take a profit or cut a loss.
You can display the specifications for any contract by going to Intrade.com, using the menus to find the contract and clicking on the contract name (e.g., “PRESIDENT.GWBUSH2004”). A popup window showing contract specs and stats will appear. See “Contract Specs” at the bottom of this window. Then click on “Examples”, “Margin Specs” and “Explanation” for more info about the contract.
Intrade’s explanation of how one actually trades is a bit disorganized, but you should be able to get the information you need by going to the Intrade.com home page and clicking around (some of the useful menus are on the bottom of the page). Also, if you go to Tradesports.com (the sports betting site of the company that runs Intrade.com) and click on “Trading Demo”, there’s a brief movie that gives a feel for how the system works, using a sports example.
Note that I have not (yet) traded on this system myself, and that Chicagoboyz does not speak for Intrade.com. I suggest that you contact Intrade directly (“help@intrade.com”) if you need more info. They have been quick to respond on the couple of occasions that I contacted them.