Friday, January 9, 2009

19 New Contracts Launched

iPredict launches 19 new contracts this morning covering politics, the economy, and our first foray into science with two contracts on climate change.

The full set of contracts launched today are:

FIJI.PM: Frank Bainimarama to lose position as Interim Prime Minister of Fiji in 2009
ZIM.MUGABE: Robert Mugabe to lose position as President of Zimbabwe in 2009
MP.CLARK: Helen Clark to leave Parliament in 2009
MP.CULLEN: Michael Cullen to leave Parliament in 2009
MP.ANDERTON: Jim Anderton to announce in 2009 he will not stand in next election
LEAD.GOFF.09: Phil Goff to be replaced as Labour leader in 2009
DL.KING.09: Annette King to be replaced as Labour deputy leader in 2009
NAT.MAORI.09: Maori/National agreement to be terminated in 2009
NAT.ACT.09: ACT/National agreement to be terminated in 2009
UNEM.DEC08: What will the unemployment rate for the December 2008 quarter be?
UNEM.MAR09: What will the unemployment rate for the March 2009 quarter be?
UNEM.JUN09: What will the unemployment rate for the June 2009 quarter be?
UNEM.SEP09: What will the unemployment rate for the September 2009 quarter be?
OCR.09.SUB45: OCR to go below 4.5% in 2009
OCR.09.SUB40: OCR to go below 4.0% in 2009
OCR.09.SUB35: OCR to go below 3.5% in 2009
OCR.09.SUB30: OCR to go below 3.0% in 2009
TEMP.2009: Global temperatures to be warmer in 2009 than 2008
TEMP.2009.HIGH: Global temperatures in 2009 to be highest ever

All but four of the contracts are binary. This is the result of demand: over 95% of all trading to date on iPredict has been on binary stocks.

Probably the newest aspect to these stocks is the introduction of two questions on climate change. 2009 is shaping to be an interesting year for climate science. There are, as I understand it, two camps in the climate change community. One says that greenhouse gases is a major driver of changes in climate. The second says changes in the Sun's energy output is responsible. What makes 2009 interesting is that these drivers are expected to head in opposite directions - greenhouse gas concentrations will continue their inevitable march upwards, but the Sun's energy is expected to continue falling. So which driver will temperatures tend to follow in 09?

We have more contracts in the works on petrol prices, mortgage rates and the weather, and possibly commodity prices.

15 comments:

Luke H said...

I still like bundled stocks. :-)

Anonymous said...

Me too, can we have some bundle stocks along with these ? Aussie OCR etc? Also the hyperlinks in the original post seem to point to www.blogger.com not ipredict.co.nz

Anonymous said...

Binary stocks wooo!

Anonymous said...

Thanks matt.

These stocks look to be very interesting. There are now some great opportunities to make money. I've already made as much today as i have in the last month.... Still not a great amount but good none the less.

Anonymous said...

Can someone explain why FIJI.PM is so low when he himself has set the date for the elections to be in Dec 2009 already and stated he would not stand?
http://tinyurl.com/9jmnng
http://tinyurl.com/9ear8c

Lt.Gorman said...

Latest reports say he has ruled out elections in 2009.

http://australianetworknews.com/stories/200901/2461912.htm?desktop

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=44044

Matt Burgess said...

I'll put some bundle stocks together. Aussie OCR looks like a good candidate.

Luke H said...

Thanks Matt!

Anonymous said...

Some great contracts there Mike, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Great work with the new stocks Matt and I've just seen you on TV. Well done!

I'm sure the binary stocks do best because they allow a large potential return relative to the initial outlay. This isn't the case with the "grey scale" stocks.

Here's an idea that could make the "grey scale" stocks more popular. Giving the NZ$ vs US$ as an example:
If the NZ$ finishes at 50c or below, the stock pays $0;
If the NZ$ finishes at 60c or above, the stock pays $1;
If the NZ$ finishes between 50c and 60c, the stock pays in between (eg. 57c would pay $0.70).
What do you reckon?

Luke H said...

Sounds suspiciously like an indexed stock, mate! :-)

Anonymous said...

Excellent idea plutoman....the building consents stocks are essentially dead because of the way they have been specified.

Anonymous said...

I think the main problem with the indexed stocks is the market maker spacings, these often need to be closer together for an indexed stock as the potential range is much lower. For example the BC stocks could have the market maker concentrating on a range between 0.1 and 0.2, with much tighter spreads as a result. The other key for indexed stocks will be the return vs capital ration, ie. low priced indexed stocks will do better as you can leverage higher with the limited capital available, hence offering bigger returns from comparitively small gains.
Personally I think the binaries do better as it is easier for people to come to an opinion without thinking too hard or getting out the calculator...

Luke H said...

I reckon a bundle could take care of these concerns:

Building consents 0-1000
Building consents 1001-1500
Building consents 1501-2000
Building consents 2001+
etc

But to be honest building consents issued is a pretty boring subject anyway! :-)

Anonymous said...

Luke,

Yep, it is an indexed stock ("grey scale" was just the term I used for that), but my idea makes the trading range ten times wider.

Your idea of bundles isn't a bad one either.