predictive-jan08.html

The oD Sophocrats

openDemocracy launched a set of predictivemarktes in January 2007. The idea was that byallowing oD readers to buy and sell forecasts, the oD crowd wouldreveal its special wisdom.

350 readers signed up to the markets over the year. They were give$1000 to buy forecasts. For example, at the start of the year, youcould buy "Sarkozy becomes French President" for $40. When he becamepresident, you could cash that out for $100. In between time, if theprice on Sarkozy seemed to you out-of-kilter, you could trade andspeculate on the price movements. The top ten traders have shown a realskill and dedication. Tan Copsey, my colleague from China Dialogue,had an eye-popping run of profitable predicting, turning those $1,000into $135,442 - I am sure that he can rest assured of an alternativecareer as a carbon trader.

There are five copies of oD's special book edition of Jim Gabour's NewOrleans Stories to allocate among the top 10 traders. To continue onthe theme of winning and gambling, I have devised the Sophocrats'Roulette. The area on the Roulette is proportional to the winnings ofeach - so Copsey, for instance, has approximately double the chance ofwinning compared to joefranks69. I spin this wheel 5 times and recordthe winner. These are the 5 who will receive the Gabour book.



The spins of the wheel were virtual, and, as I show in the table, thewinners of the Gabour prize are:
Sam_11, Copsey, goof, joefrank69 and shaun.chau. Congratulations andthank you. Please email me with your delivery address if you have wonone of these books.



As for the markets themselves, elections and sports tournaments haveproven a natural ground for the sophocrats. The French presidentialelection had the most trades. Our crowd had Sego out ahead early in thecampaign, and we never seem to have quite come to terms with Sarko'spopularity - or was it populism? In the last week of the market, we seea few hard-headed traders buying the undervalued Sarko.



My own favourite market has been the Gittlin question:
"something (a) large, (b) unanticipated,
and (c) horrible will take place in 2007 -
more than one such event, in
fact"

We started the year with a 60% probability that this would indeed bethe case, but some heavy mid-year optimism made that price drop to 38%today.




When I set up this market, I said that it would be decided by a vote ofthe oD readership. There were 36% "No's" and 63% "Yes's" ... so, 2007 wasBAD, and the optimistic oD crowd failed to forecast the pessimisticmood of the oD crowd.

Where now for the markets. First, thanks to Adam Siegel and NathanKotny from InklingMarketsfor giving access to this great software platform for the markets.Second, if someone out there wants to take on the torch of runningthese markets, pleaseemail me. It'll require a few hours per week, and I'll askyou for a quarterly update to be published on oD. It's a greatopportunity for someone to take a turn at nurturing a small communityof enthusiasts.

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