Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:47:38 -0000

wstritt — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:47:38 -0000

I debated whether to post this one or just keep it to myself but decided to share the wealth. Tons of inkles to be had and payday is at the end of July.

Welche der Social Shopping Dienste werden sich am deutschen Markt behaupten

The 8/3/07 comment from the market creator in a response to a question reads: “All of them are startups that launched in the last couple of months. The question is: Which of these social shopping services will survive/ be successful?”

While it is not entirely clear what the criteria will be – survive being somewhat different than successful – it seems to me a reasonable proxy for success is probably traffic rank in Germany, the home of the sites represented by the stocks.

As of earlier this week, according to Alexa.com, traffic rankings in Germany (as well as my preliminary classification) are:

Successful
Traddoria.de 1,292
dewanda.com 1,307
edelight.de 1,368

Somewhat Successful
Yieeha.de 3,565
dealjaeger.de 4,346

Survivor
shoppero.com 14,091

Survivors ???
askfirst.de 152,234
sosmart.de 144,820

Dead
deals.de 20,146
abettertomorrow.de 289,421

For classification of “success”, I referred to this web site for some of the top US social shopping sites. Etsy.com and kaboodle.com seem to be the top pure social shopping sites and, per Alexa, rank 340 and 646 in US traffic, respectively. Dropping to the next tier, Stylefeeder.com, buzzillions.com and thisnext.com. They rank 5260, 3483, and 2681, respectively. This suggests to me, anyway, that anything above 5,000 should probably be considered at least somewhat successful.

Beyond that, with a deeper market, the US can support more sites, so a German rank >10,000 is debatable as to “success” leaving shopperoo.com as, at best, a “survivor”.

As for the possible survivors, there is still a website for askfirst.com but gets so little traffic it is debatable if it is anything more than a zombie. If one read German, you could probably go through the site and figure out the answer. There is also still a website for sosmart.de but it seems to be referring to waiting for testing a 2.0 beta – certainly not a “success” and maybe not anything.

As for the Dead classification, deals.de was dead in April but appears to have recently resurfaced though not as a social shopping site. The website for abettertomorrow.de appears to have reverted to a generic site collector.

So, I would suggest edelight, dawanda and traddoria (all currently at 76.86 inkles so 23 inkle upside) are pretty much locks for 100 inkle payouts while deals.de (trading at 25.36) and abettertomorrow (trading at 31.01) are pretty much locks for 0 payouts.

All the others fall somewhere in between.

Obviously, I have been trading in this market. As best I can tell, I probably represent 90%+ of shares transacted to date. In the interest of sharing the wealth, I will refrain from further trading in this market until the middle of next week at which point I will probably resume trading it if no one else pays attention to it.

Good luck.

Lock of the week replied by mvguy @ Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:43:43 -0000

mvguy — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:43:43 -0000

There also may be some inkles to be made in similar markets for running mates.

Here’s one I just came across (and am taking advantage of):

CrowdSpirit.com: Will the crowd succeed in co-developing an electronic product from scratch?

From what I can tell, CrowdSpirit.com is still in a beta of some sort and is nowhere near developing a product. It sounds like an interesting idea, but it’s not going to bear fruit by the end of this month.

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:44:22 -0000

wstritt — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:44:22 -0000

I almost wasn’t going to bother this week but this one is driving me nuts. There are at least three markets asking essentially the same question:

Will Barack Obama win the 2008 U.S. Election? currently trading at 80.60;

Who will win the 2008 United States Presidential Election? with Barack Obama currently trading at 75.39; and

Which party’s nominee will win the US Presidential election in 2008? with Democrat (i.e. Obama) trading at 71.82

At one point, the spread between the high and low probabilities for Obama was 17 inkles (71 to 88). Someone really likes the first market and Obama and keeps bidding it up. Opportunity to keep shorting it and going long whichever other market is priced the lowest currently worth 8 inkles.

Large Trades Distort Prediction Accuracy replied by Roger @ Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:40:47 -0000

Roger — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:40:47 -0000

Hi Bill
It seems like my point wasn’t clear enough.

In Inkling’s design of a prediction market, the size of a single position can determine the prediction percentage of the total position holders in a market. This means, if a position holder has a large account, they can easily distort the predictive range of agreement, or disagreement.

This isn’t reality in the real world, and it isn’t reflective of crowd estimation research. For example, when I place a trade for 5,000 contracts of Corn, or 3,000 contracts of Crude Oil, if my broker is careful and does it as volume appears in the market, my entry price into the market can end up being near where it was just before I made entry. Now, if other people noticed what I’m doing, and that happens sometimes, they can try to run my stops, or get on in the same direction.

If a lot of people get on in the same direction, this moves the market in the direction of my trade. However, if I’m the only one who gets in, the market will hardly notice my position and the price won’t change much until the volume of trading begins to move either against or in favor of my position. This means that for the market price to change, there needs to be broader market participation, not large size, in order for the price to be significantly impacted.

Inkling’s approach views the size of a large position as broad market participation, instead of a large trader with a big paw. It also means that if you have a large paw, your prediction bias is more likely to be correct than the average of all previous traders. This is a silly concept because it believes “might it right”, through its interpretation of position size. Reality shows that good predictions come from the average results of a crowd, not from the individuals in the crowd who have big pockets.

It isn’t hard to see why Inking might have designed the process to work this way because it simplifies the process of making prediction value adjustments, and because it creates a game that looks like a real world market. However, my argument is that they should have gone in a different direction. For example, let’s assume a large player with 2m Inklings decides to risk 500 contracts in a market, but that position size in comparison to his available Inklings calculates to less than 0.025% of his Inkling equity. Is this large trader thinking his prediction decision is rock solid? It doesn’t seem like it when you compare it to someone with an account of 5,000 Inklings who thinks they know something about the market, so they decide to risk 500 Inklings, or 10% of their account balance in that market. Should the not-so-sure large trader’s position size influence the price more than the person who believes they know what is going to happen, and puts 10%, or a larger piece of themselves at risk? I don’t think it is reality.

My view, if we are to maintain the market model appearance, is to have the risk, in terms of the exposure to a trader’s account be the most influential reflection of his belief be the impacting element when it comes time for Inkling’s Market Maker to adjust the market’s prediction range values. Let’s put this is terms of how each of us would react to two different sets of facts. A new expert who doesn’t know much says, he thinks, “your chances are good, but don’t hold me to a certainty.” However, the next expert says, “controlled research shows that if this approach is used the chance for success is going to be better than 40%, and I’m willing to put my reputation on the line that the information is accurate.”

Would you believe the person who doesn’t want to risk anything more than your frustration, or the person who is willing to take a serious reputation hit, and has supporting data that his answer is correct? My instincts have me going with the person who did the work, stated his certainty and is willing to stand behind what they are saying.

Another example might be when we ask for an opinion and ask a group of people to give us their best guess on what might happen. As we go through the group we ask each person to give us a prediction, and also their belief in how strongly they feel about the certainty of that prediction. If all the people, but one said, their average belief indicates an outcome of a 30% chance for success, but one person demanded we write down the outcome had a 90% certainty and would not stop talking. What would you give the outcome to be from this sampling? Inkling’s calculation would let the stronger person have a large influence on the outcome.

If the Inkling process would look at what people are willing to risk as a percentage of what they have available, then they are getting a percentage number or value from each trader that can then be analyzed to create a prediction percent. This is in reality the information they are getting in the prediction markets that require people use actual cash to describe their belief level. By allowing people to think in terms of how strongly they believe in a prediction, versus the current Inkling paradigm of how much they have to bet, the prediction accuracy would be better and the percentages would move away from what people believe might be a reasonable gamble of where they can make a commitment, to what they think will happen.

Another area that distorts the process is how much the number of Inklings available can allow or restrict how many markets a participant can record their belief in the markets they find interesting. This issue is based in some of the above logic here and because of the market model being presented, but this posting is too long already.

As for the prediction amount being so dependant on large trade size, and allow large traders like yourself to take a large rake from better entry price into a market, I agree that would be a natural result of what I’m proposing here. Of course, that has a downside when the guess is wrong, but that is the beauty of making the process more participation and belief dependant.

When size is less important, accuracy and consistency increase. What we have now are large paws putting low risk positions in a lot of places distorting the reflection of what people think might happen, and doing this with a smaller sample of opinions than would result otherwise. Crowd size is an important aspect for finding the value of something with an opinion process.

Market not cashed out when it should be replied by acollard @ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:25:45 -0000

acollard — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:25:45 -0000

http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/7813 and http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/12549

Both need the eliminated teams cashed out.

Market not cashed out when it should be replied by mvguy @ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:18:36 -0000

mvguy — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:18:36 -0000

When will Hillary Rodham Clinton withdraw from the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination?

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:00:56 -0000

wstritt — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:00:56 -0000

Well, I promised something better, not sure I can deliver though. While I beleive that there are a bunch of inkles to be had, I can’t say it is a “lock” given that something could happen between now and June 25th market closing in the What is the probability each of these yCombinator start-ups will get bought out in the next 2 years? market.

It would appear that TextPayMe – trading at 76.93 – has been bought by Amazon.com (this or this link among others), however it is somewhat disconcerting that the stock has not already been cashed out like Kiko and Reddit, particularly given the market creator, Adam, is Inkling and they should have some insight mere mortals such as us do not have.

On the other hand, YouOS – trading at 32.83 – about us suggests it has not yet been sold.

Flipt – trading at 31.61 – is now loopt.com. Based on their history, while they have sourced some venture capital it appears they have not been “bought out”.

ClickFacts – trading at 31.52 – is privately held but one of the founders is only part of the team. I’m guessing he didn’t completely sell out to the VC’s that seem to be in control but that may be a matter of interpretation for Adam. Tricky question on this one.

Wufoo – trading at 31.01 – however, still seems to be under the control of the original founders.

Snipshot, AudioBeta and Flagr all seem to have not been bought out either. No articles like this one on any of the companies on the list though.

CAUTION is the word on these – my research is not all inclusive and there is much more out there than cited above. Lots of Inkles on the table for either longs or shorts, answers are knowable (maybe you could even call them up rather than just relying on Google searchs) and pay off should be in 5 days. But, I can not confirm a lock. Sorry.

For true locks, but not many Inkles, though this market still has 2.4 inkles per 100 tied up in a short from teams that have already been eliminated, it seems pretty clear that Samuel Israel did not suicide for 4 inkles per 100 tied up, while in the home run race, due to injuries, Pujols and Soriano – 3.90 each or 7.80 per 100 tied up in a short – are unlikely to be the leaders at year end. And, oh by the way, Massachusetts – trading at 89.02 is voting for Obama over McCain in the fall.

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:42:36 -0000

wstritt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:42:36 -0000

I am bummed beyond belief. mvguy beat me to the punch on the TOP SUMMER MOVIE market. He is absolutely correct – there is some chance that one of the 10 stocks could hit the top 10 but the odds are really closer to 1 in 100 (or greater) than the 1 in 10 implied by the opening price so shorting them all would be a winner.

I would also note that the stocks remaining open are currently trading for >1300 inkles with a max payoff of 900 (Indiana Jones has already closed out). Short one of everything locks in a gain of 400 inkles though that would tie up ~3600 inkles for varying periods of time. The obvious conclusion, however, is that there are multiple mispricings left in this market so mvguy’s point about a little research certainly rings true.

An advertisement for a market that I currently have no interest in but is a LOCK for a BIG PAYOFF: When will the U.S. Constitution be amended?

Newsflash – the chances of it happening by the current prediction of 10/9/2009 are close to nil and probably close to nil any time within several years of that date. In other words, a LOCK for a BIG PAYOFF. Unfortunately you won’t get cashed out for a very long time…and maybe not until the 2020 market end date. Still, a place to make and/or park some inkles. Note my caveats in the comment section though. I suspect that there are only a handful for investors (maybe even only one or two) that hold the bulk of the stock at the moment so some risk that they could severely drop the price if they chose to sell. On the other hand, that would tend to greatly diminish their inkle balance so maybe they have an incentive to hang around.

Next week I promise something better but I need to play around with it a bit myself this week before settling on the locks.

Happy trading.

Lock of the week replied by mvguy @ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:05:22 -0000

mvguy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:05:22 -0000

Not quite a lock, but low-risk:

In my market on top summer movies, all of the ones I started out at $10 are films that are very unlikely to be blockbusters. Chances are that some of them won’t even open this summer and/or will be very poor earners. You might have to wait until September to earn your $10, but not necessarily.

A little bit of research on some of the other movies also could pay off handsomely.

Large Trades Distort Prediction Accuracy replied by wstritt @ Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:08:51 -0000

wstritt — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:08:51 -0000

I’m not sure I understand your point. Of course large trades move the market in a significant way. I don’t understand, however, why that necessarily “distorts” prediction values.

You note that in the real world the impact of a clumsily executed large trade would revert to prior market levels whereas in the Inkling world it doesn’t. In the real world that is only true in the event the large trade is actually distorting (i.e. sets wrong price) as sellers will enter the market and drive down the price to its appropriate equilibrium. If the trade ultimately reflects new information, it will not revert. In either case, there is generally sufficient market liquidity on both sides of the question to set the “right” (one could quibble with that adjective) price, though clearly not in all cases (e.g. the current illiquidity in the mortgage backed markets).

In theory, if a large buy (or sale) in an Inkling market moves a price beyond what is reasonable, other traders are free to sell their positions or short the stock (or buy) and drive it back to where it belongs. Certainly both you and I have done so. Indeed, other traders should thank the distorter for creating opportunities/liquidity to take inklings off the table and/or earn outsized returns for the risk being taken. There are certainly a number of markets with a larger number of traders that appear to be reasonably efficient. If an Inkling market doesn’t revert, presumably other traders believe the the new prediction value is close enough to correct that there is no value to be had in taking a contrary view. In all of the above cases, there is no particular reason to think that the predictive value of one large trader (with conviction) is no better or worse that the predictive value of a bunch of smaller traders. Indeed, if the value predicted by one large trader doesn’t revert in the face of all traders presumably seeing it, the fact that everyone else doesn’t sell arguably implies that the other traders agree so the price does reflect the view of the many.

On the other hand, the alternative is that there is not enough liquidity to drive the price back to where it belongs. However that, presumably, is the distorter’s problem, not anyone elses (OK, maybe the market creator’s if they were using the results for something but they can read in to the lack of trading whatever they want). For what it is worth, I subscribe to that theory – there is not enough liquidity in many Inkling markets.

While I can’t speak to the trading strategies of other large balance traders, as one of them I can only tell you what I do. I almost never invest in more than 50 shares of anything unless I think that a stock is grossly over or under valued based on objective research. Often that means that the market isn’t well followed (no liquidity so minimal predictive value until I enter), or I happen to check in shortly after new markets open with default prices where outsized profits are available. Given that there are relatively easy inkles to be had with that strategy, there is little point in making large uninformed clumsy speculative investments. If anything, I’m guessing that my participation, and that of other large balance players, makes markets more efficient/accurate rather than distorted. In my view, if anything, there are not enough large traders to make every market efficient/accurate – take a look at my separate posts under Locks of the Week – opportunities that should not exist if the masses were paying attention and/or had plenty of liquidity.

Maybe your real complaint is that large balance traders find and exploit the lucrative investment opportunities before the small guys had a chance. Maybe, or maybe the large balance folks are more informed or interested in doing a little research. Last time I checked, the internet was available to every Inkling trader while new markets appear to be launched somewhat randomly. I will admit that large inkle balances probably provide more freedom to take positions in longer pay out markets which is otherwise a sub-optimal investment strategy for lower inkle balance players. I would submit that it makes those markets more predictive though.

To be honest, I’d love your solution to have prices automatically revert to pre-buy levels which would allow me to buy grossly under valued stocks over and over again.

By the way, my potentially “distortive” positions of 250 shares or more are listed below. Please let me know where you think I’ve grossly distorted the true probabilities aside from not buying or shorting enough (i.e. Yes I know the probability of Frei scoring the most points in Euro 2008 is 0, I just don’t have enough inkles to drive it to that level).

1824 long on when the 787 will be delivered
1554 long on the next NASA mission post shuttle retirement
1317 long on when 24 will premier
250 -1,000 shares short in the stocks of primary losers and other non-participants in the New Mexico election markets.
800 short on when the Pittsburgh Casino wil open
600 long on where Boston City Hall will be on 6/21
587 long on when Belgium will have its next astronaut
500 long that a Democrat will have the delegates necessary to win by 8/1 according to CNN & Fox
400 short that Arthur will be the strongest Hurricane of the season
400 short that Michael Strahan will play for someone other than the Giants
382 long that the Amazing Race 13 will premier in September
300 short that Wikipedia will hit 2.5MM English articles by 6/15
250 short in will McCain pick a VP today
250 short that Alexander Frei will score the most goals in Euro 2008
250 short that Rogers Clemens will be doing anything other than “something else” or “defending against perjury charges” on July 1
250 short that the US will have an Avian Flu outbreak before 7/1/2008
250 long that Hillary will speak at the Democratic convention
250 short of every stock in the Battlestar Galactica “Final Five” market except for the 4 already identified members

Market not cashed out when it should be replied by foobar @ Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:43:41 -0000

foobar — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:43:41 -0000

This market can be closed out…
http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/7059
The Detroit Red Wings were victorious

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:15:43 -0000

wstritt — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:15:43 -0000

This one will take two months to pay off but there are probably several 17+ Inkle “close to” locks available here.

Who will speak at 2008 Democratic convention?

If the 2004 convention speaker list is any indication of typical speakers, seems likely that the major candidates will speak. In that group:

Hillary Clinton trading at 82.35 – no way they can prevent her from speaking given number of delegates she has

John Edwards trading at 83.43 – only 6 delegates but the 3rd largest vote-getter in the primaries

Bill Richardson trading at 78.92 – no delegates but 4th largest vote-getter and high profile Hispanic Governor to boot

Not locks but Ex-Presidents get to talk if they want to. In that group:

Bill Clinton trading at 69.09 – only thing that stops him is if Hillary tells him to shut up

Jimmy Carter trading at 66.38 – seems to have things to say these days

Not locks but Other highly likely speakers:

Nancy Pelosi trading at 75.40 – Speaker of the House, a “must” speaker

Al Gore trading at 71.18 – Noble Prize winner and winner of 2000 election in view of most convention attendees

Ted Kennedy trading at 65.57 – Supporter of Obama and a Kennedy, only physical inability keeps him from speaking

Not Locks but good chance speakers:

Jesse Jackson trading at 54.99 – In some respects, blazed the trail for Obama

Chelsea Clinton trading at 50.00 – All the candidates kids spoke last time and who better to introduce Hillary than the next generation

WARNING: I HAVE LONG POSITIONS IN ALL OF THE ABOVE

No chance speaker

Reverend Wright…but he has already traded down to 4.32

WARNING: I AM SHORT WRIGHT AND SEVERAL OTHERS

ALL PRICES AS OF TIME OF POST

Market not cashed out when it should be replied by acollard @ Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:52:27 -0000

acollard — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:52:27 -0000

http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/11310

The month of May has been and gone. The option needs to be cashed out (at $0 – Psystar press page )

Large Trades Distort Prediction Accuracy replied by Roger @ Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:04:37 -0000

Roger — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:04:37 -0000

Large Inkling Accounts distort prediction percent values, and thus accuracy, in a way that doesn’t reflect how physical markets (Currencies, Bonds, Grains, Energy, Stock, etc.) trade, or surveys would predict. When larger volume players enter a market by pushing a large size into a single transaction, the market will spike in the direction of the trade and stay there. This is no different than how the Inkling markets react, but what is different is that in the physical world markets, the prices revert to a value that is near to where it was prior to the clumsy way the position size was entered into the market. This is especially true since the electronic markets have now become the dominant way of trading in real world markets. If the Inkling markets were judged based upon a daily survey, the bias of the survey would not react to the large voice of a single person, but would count that opinion in comparison to how it favored the collective opinion’s bias.

In the case of how our Inkling markets react, the volume is interpreted as a larger more significant opinion of what will result, when in reality all that is being reflected is someone who is willing to bet a large size because they have a larger balance. There is no significant positive correlation between bet size and prediction accuracy, so trade-size shouldn’t be a controlling influence on prediction bias. Instead, a lot of the same opinions should be the dominant predictor and that only begins to have significance once a larger enough sample of opinions have been collected.

From watching how markets are playing out, larger size doesn’t improve the prediction, but it does push the prediction pricing around enough that it creates exit signals for prudent players, forcing them to leave the market because of the prediction’s price impact. It also distorts the market’s possible win/loss ratio enough to make the market unattractive to participation, or even to stay with the current position of the market. Taking new, or staying with current trades where the current Win/Loss ratio can cause a negative distortion to the trader’s positive expectancy percentage is a critical factor to avoid for a player/trader’s survival in the real world, and it is no different for a prediction player.

Instead of leaving the pricing so distorted and unrepresentative of accumulated opinions, it would be closer to reality that when a position size is applied to a market, that trade’s pricing should continue to be priced based upon how large the accumulated volume is impacting the current market’s prediction value, which is what happens now. However, and after the transaction is completed, the prediction price should then be allowed to return to a level near to where it was previously so that other participants in the market will understand the pricing spike was the result of a large volume single transaction of one player having an opinion, instead of a large shift in the opinion’s of the collective participants.

In simple terms, as more people accumulate volume on one side of a market, that should be the mechanism that moves the prediction in a direction, not the single size of a single bet size. To do otherwise changes the dynamics and reduces validity of the prediction markets. It also increases the risk of participating in a market because large volume trades are not viewed as aberrant price spikes.

I know that by pushing the prediction pricing around in Inkling’s current brutal fashion, people are avoiding participation in markets because the risk versus the reward of participating is too far out of line of what is acceptable. Low participation in the markets can only reduce the value of a prediction market, which doesn’t serve anyone’s best interest.

Please consider applying some average size weighting for adjusting the prediction pricing so that the collective opinions are more representative of how the market’s participants believe the question will be resolved.

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Fri, 30 May 2008 03:56:43 -0000

wstritt — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:56:43 -0000

Not being particularly creative this week, a repeat from a different thread that it doesn’t seem many read:

Will UCF repeat as 2008 CUSA Football Champion? currently trading at $33.63 for yes.

Versus What team will win the 2008 CUSA Football Championship? where UCF currently trades at $16.36.

When I first noted this arbitrage, there were 23 inkles per 100 tied up to be had. It is down to 17 inkles per 100 but still not a bad “lock” return if you have some inkles to keep tied up for a while.

Market not cashed out when it should be replied by foobar @ Tue, 27 May 2008 21:01:32 -0000

foobar — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:01:32 -0000

This market can be closed out…
http://home.inklingmarkets.com/stocks/19835/tra…
Google and Salesforce are independent

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Mon, 19 May 2008 17:32:15 -0000

wstritt — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:32:15 -0000

An early one this week given that the opportunity may close out soon if the market creators notice.

Which team will win the Indian Premier League’s T20 Cricket Final on June 1 2008?

Which team will win the Inaugural Indian Premier League T20 Tournament?

If my calculations are correct, with 3 games left to play, the highest point total for the Deccan Chargers can only be 10 while the top 4 already are at 12 and, thus, they have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs so should cash out at 0 in both markets. Depending on the outcome of today’s game, the Bangalore Royal Challengers may suffer the same fate.

UPDATE: Bangalore lost. Go here for current standings.

Both are trading around 5 inkles in both markets so several quick turnaround 5 inkle per hundred tied up locks (or soon to be locks).

By the way, based on an e-mail from the market creator on The Amazing Race, since a specific month is not yet stated, it looks like close out will remain month by month. September still seems like a lock to me.

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Thu, 15 May 2008 23:43:51 -0000

wstritt — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:43:51 -0000

This may only be open for a short while longer but:

When will the first episode of The Amazing Race 13 air?

CBS has announced its fall schedule with The Amazing Race on Sunday Night. Schedule and link to press release at following link:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/fall_preview_2008/

While “Season 13” isn’t expressly identified, TAF is not on the list of “Summer Shows” so the fall series is Season 13 by definition.

I assume the Fall primetime schedule will start in September though it isn’t expressly stated in the CBS release.

September is currently at 77 inkles with seemingly a “lock” payout of 100.

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Wed, 07 May 2008 23:07:05 -0000

wstritt — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:07:05 -0000

I was debating whether to bother this week as it seems, based on subsequent trading in the referenced markets, that few people take advantage of the locks posted. For example, after no one acted on the Battlestar Galactica lock, I had to start trading it myself. Maybe it was the indefinite closing date? Still plenty of free Inkles left there, just fewer than a week ago.

Unfortunately, closer in markets tend not to have as large amount of “free” Inkles. Let me offer a laundry list of markets closing by June 1st:

For 8 low risk (but not risk free) Inkles, you might try this market which will cash out in a couple of weeks:

Who will be the top scorer in 2007-08 UEFA Champions League?

While there is some chance that Didier Drogba (6 goals) can catch Ronaldo (7 goals), particularly if Chelsea wins the Champions League, it is unlikely (hint – this isn’t ice hockey kids) that Wayne Rooney (4 goals) or the field (currently led by Carlos Tevez @ 4 goals) will score 3 in the remaining 2 games to tie. Shorting them both will get you 8 Inkles.

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/index.html

Also 8 low risk Inkles to be had here:

When will the first episode of The Amazing Race 13 air?

Given lack of promotion, it seems highly unlikely that the Amazing Race 13 will air in May 2008.

Also, if you do a little research (i.e. Google search), you are likely to learn enough to make 20+ near term low risk Inkles per 100 tied up in mvguy’s Libertarian Party market, even if all you do is short the obvious non-winners:

Who will be the 2008 presidential nominee of the (U.S.) Libertarian Party?

Moving on to “locks”, here is a pair where there is a small amount of arbitrage where cash out should be in the next couple of weeks:

The 2008 winner of American Idol (Season 7) will have been selected from an audition in what US city?

The 2008 American Idol winner will be…..

Here is the key, at least per their profiles here

David Archuleta auditioned in San Diego
David Cook auditioned in Omaha
Seyesha Mercado auditioned in Miami
Jason Castro auditioned in Dallas

As I write Castro is trading at 1.16 in the latter market while Dallas is at 3.40 for 2 free Inkles. The rest are trading around parity partly due to my trading. However, periodically someone trades in one market and not the other opening 5 – 10 Inkle arbitrage opportunities. I would not be offended if someone other than me closed those gaps (i.e. short the higher priced stock and go long the cheaper one in equal amounts until the prices are equal for a locked in profit).

In a similar vein, there are two markets asking who will win the India Premier League Cricket Championship that should cash out around June 1st.

Which team will win the Indian Premier League’s T20 Cricket Final on June 1 2008
Which team will win the Inaugural Indian Premier League T20 Tournament.

At the moment, they are trading largely at parity with largest gap being around 2 Inkles. However, from time to time after a game, one market moves without a similar move in the other, an arb I tend to eliminate if I see it. Again, I would not be offended if someone other than me closed those gaps.

Finally, an update on the March 28th post: a new Formula 1 market has started asking a similar question, in this case whether Kimi Rakonnen will win:

http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/11534

While originally trading at somewhat of a spread to the original two, someone has closed that arbitrage for the moment.

http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/10329
http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/10332

If anyone actually trades some of these, maybe I’ll give you something better (though somewhat longer term payout) next week.

Have fun.

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:28:53 -0000

wstritt — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:28:53 -0000

Instead of low return, short term markets, this one is a bit more lucrative but may take a little more time to pay out. Should be this year though.

http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/3625

This market asks the question who are the members of the “Final Five” on Battlestar Galactica. This market will pay off at 100 for each of the “Final Five” or 500 Inkles overall.

At the end of season 3, four of the “Final Five” cylons were revealed to be: Tory Foster, Galen Tyrol, Samuel Anders and Saul Tigh. Absent some bizarre twist where that revelation proves to be a red herring (extremely unlikely in my uneducated view but a Battlestar Galatica fan might differ) each of these stocks should pay off at 100. As I write, they each trade at ~90. In other words, pretty much a lock for 10 Inkles per share.

That leaves the last of the “Final Five”. As I write, the sum of the remaining stocks total around 335 while the pay off is only 100 – a sure sign of mispriced stocks/market and no-risk Inkles to be had.

Shorting one of every share will cost 1000 less the 335 proceeds (or 665 tied up). Payoff should be at least 235 on that investment assuming one of the remaining stocks is the last of the five. If it turns out to be someone else, the payoff is 335. In either case, a nice return on investment.

An alternative strategy that ties up less resources is to short the 4 that are trading around 40 for 400 less the 160 proceeds (or 240 tied up) which will pay off 60 or 160 depending if one of them is in the final five. Still not a bad return.

Finally, it you are paranoid that the first 4 are red herrings, you can short every stock for 1400 less 695 proceeds (or 705 tied up) with payoff of at least 195 and maybe more. Also a pretty good return with the added benefit of creating larger profit opportunities for those who are less paranoid but at no cost to you.

Only caveat, the answer will presumably be revealed some time this season but it may not be until near the end.

For more background, try this link:

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Final_five

Such easy Inkles. Why am I sharing this with you??

Lock of the week replied by mvguy @ Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:47:39 -0000

mvguy — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:47:39 -0000

This isn’t quite a lock, but it’s pretty low-risk:

Who will be the 2008 presidential nominee of the (U.S.) Constitution Party?

The nominee almost certainly will be either Alan Keyes (the guy who ran as a Republican against Barack Obama for the U.S. Senate seat four years ago) or Chuck Baldwin (a Florida pastor who previously was the party’s vice presidential nominee). It also has been said that Roy Moore (the former Alabma jurist known for his defense of Ten Commandments displays) could have the nomination if he wants it, but he hasn’t indicated any interest in running. The only other candidate who appears to have significant support in the party is Ron Paul (who is still running for the Republican nomination), but Paul has made quite clear he won’t run as a third-party candidate this year.

In my opinion, it would be a low-risk investment to buy X shares each of Keyes, Baldwin and Moore; at current prices you’d probably triple your investment. You could also buy short on just about anyone else and almost be guaranteed a 6% return by Sunday.

You can find out more about the Constitution Party contest at Third Party Watch.

Disclaimer: This is one of my markets. I (obviously) have no inklings invested in it. This is merely my advice as a political observer; there are no guarantees.

Lock of the week replied by wstritt @ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:44:41 -0000

wstritt — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:44:41 -0000

http://home.inklingmarkets.com/markets/8684

London mayoral race looks like it will come down to Livingstone or Johnson with the price of the two bouncing back and forth. One thing is pretty certain, it isn’t any of the others whose stocks currently add up to a little over 8 inkles. Short everyone other than Livingstone and Johnson (or go long Livingstone and Johnson) to pick up a quick 5-8 inkles per hundred with cash out less than 10 days away.

Cheers.

How do I get report data? replied by dcarlisle @ Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:24:21 -0000

dcarlisle — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:24:21 -0000

Thanks for the follow up Adam.

Don

How do I get report data? replied by nate @ Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:46:48 -0000

nate — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:46:48 -0000

The .csv reports are slightly in flux at the moment as we make them a lot easier to get to. Pretty soon we’ll have a page with the reports available.

Can you send us an email (admin at inklingmarkets dot com) with the market you are trying to get a report for please, and we can send it along.

How do I get report data? replied by dcarlisle @ Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:22:23 -0000

dcarlisle — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:22:23 -0000

On your site it states that I can get .csv data. How do I get this data from a market that was already run? Thanks!

Recent Posts | Beast