The following markets are unresolved and have been for some time:

“Will Apple Stock Price on Jan 15th, 2007 reach or go above $85?” (answer: yes, source http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=AAPL . Jan 15th was actually MLK day, so the markets were closed, but it was above $85 for five days before that and five days afterward. Market URL http://home.inklingmarkets.com/market/show/2210 )

and

“What will be the the level of the FTSE-100 at the last close of 2006? (price x100)” (answer: 6220.80, so 62.21 when rounded, source http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EFTSE , market http://home.inklingmarkets.com/market/show/2472 )

Could these markets please be resolved?

In addition, the market “Who will be Iowa’s next governor” hasn’t closed (apparently Chet Culver won; I haven’t verified this, but in any case the election was November 7, so the market creator has had ample time to figure it out).

Then there’s “Which flavor will be a best seller for Jones Soda after 3 months of sales?”. This was supposed to close as of the new year, but hasn’t been cashed out yet. It’s a little more understandable in this case as the information might be difficult to get, but still, it’s been almost a month; and anyway, this person shouldn’t have created a market without some means of verifying the outcome.

I’ve sent messages to the creators of these markets and the Apple market mentioned above, with no response.

Not only in the interest of full disclosure, but also to further validate my complaint, I’ll add that I have 120 shares in the Apple stock mentioned by the original poster, which is $12k that I can’t get to until it has been cashed out; 20 shares of Chet Culver in the Iowa governor market, which I understand to be worth $2k, but hasn’t been cashed out; and various and sundry positions, both long and short, in the Jones Soda market, worth an unknown amount of money between ($15k) and $30k.

This system is broken.

[Edit: I just got an email telling me that the Iowa governor market has finally been closed, but rather than making Chet Culver the winner, all stocks were closed out at their final market value. So I made a correct prediction, but lost money. The system is still broken, but at least I got back some of that money.]

Maybe a month after a market closes, if it’s not been resolved, the market participants could all be given a week to say what their opinion of the winner is? Presumably, if they participated, they have some kind of idea about this. At the end of the week, resolve in favor of the stock with the most votes.

Doing it this way would relieve pressure from inkling itself to resolve the markets while still (hopefully) reaching mostly-fair results for participants. (The exception is markets that run for a long time but which can be resolved early – “Will price of stock BLAH go above $XX by the end of 2008?”-type stuff, which can be resolved early if BLAH reaches $XX in mid-2007.)

The Apple market has now been resolved, but the FTSE market still hasn’t. Pretty please? :-)

That Jones Soda market still hasn’t been cashed out, and it’s been over two months since it closed. As stated above, I have a huge amount of inkles tied up there that I can’t reinvest.

Someone please do something about this!