Washington Post reports that:
Bush administration withdrew the Supreme Court nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers
This prediction is hence assessed to be FALSE by the moderation panel and returns 0 moolers per share.
Monthly Archive for October, 2005
The BBC reports that the Iraqis have approved the constitution after this month’s referendum. This prediction is hence assessed to be TRUE and returns 100 moolers per share.
A BJP-led alliance will form the Central government after the next general election scheduled for May 2009.
The prediction will be considered TRUE even if the general elections are held earlier than 2009 and the BJP-led alliance comes into power at the Centre.
This prediction will be considered FALSE if the BJP-led alliance were to come to power during the term of the current Lok Sabha. In other words, the prediction will be considered false if the BJP-led alliance comes to power before general elections.
This prediction will be assessed using news reports appearing in The Indian Express before the arbitration date. It may close earlier if the event occurs and is reported to the moderators.
200 shares of this prediction [symbol: BJP-ALLIES-WIN-09] are available for purchase on the PublicGyan exchange at an initial price of 35 moolers each, following Dutch rules.
President Bush nominated Harriet Miers as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on October 3, 2005.
This prediction will be true if she is confirmed on or before Thanksgiving (November 24, 2005) but can be extended if the confirmation hearings have not concluded by then.
Results will be assessed by news reports appearing in the Washington Post.
120 shares of this prediction [symbol: MIERS-CONFIRMED-05] are available for purchase on the PublicGyan exchange at an initial price of 70 moolers each, following Dutch rules.
India will test an inter-continental ballistic missile (with a minimum range of 8000 kms) before 31 Dec 2008.
News reports appearing in The Indian Express will be used to assess this prediction. It may be closed earlier if it occurs and is reported to the moderators.
100 shares of this prediction [symbol: ICBM-INDIA-08] are available for purchase on the PublicGyan exchange at an initial price of 50 moolers each, following Dutch rules.
Spot price for Gold will hit US$500 per troy ounce by 31 Dec 2005.
Arbitration will be based on spot price data provided by Gold.org. Prediction may close earlier if it occurs and is reported to the moderators.
100 shares of this prediction [symbol: GOLD500-05] are available for purchase on the PublicGyan exchange at an initial price of 40 moolers each, following Dutch rules.
PublicGyan is mentioned in Bill Saporito’s cover story in the Oct 24, 2005 issue of TIME magazine (International edition).
The power of markets, it turns out, has something to say about practically everything. We see it at work on Wall Street, which absorbs the collected wisdom of millions of investors and expresses it as stock prices. Prediction markets now let people bet on everything from sports scores to election results to the expected capture of al-Qaeda bigwig Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi. Some of the best of those online markets: the Hollywood Stock Exchange, the Iowa Electronic Markets, Yahoo’s Tech Buzz Game and PublicGyan. [TIME]
That was a nice surprise!
This predicrion states that Angela Merkel will submit her resignation from the post of Chancellor of Germany by August 31st 2006.
For this prediction to be true, the resignation need not be accepted or approved, the mere act of submitting the resignation is enough to make this prediction TRUE.
Background: The Bundestag elections this year have been unconclusive. A grand coallition is being formed between SPD & CDU/CSU, which is going to govern the country. But with cracks being already visible within the fractions, it will be hard for Merkel to work properly and lead Germany into the future and she will submit her resignation by the arbitration date
The prediction will close earlier if the said event occurs before the arbitration date and is brough to the notice of the moderators.
100 shares of this prediction [symbol: MERKEL-77] are available for purchase on the PublicGyan exchange at an initial price of 40 moolers each, following Dutch rules.
BBC News is not reporting any news that Kofi Annan has resigned from his post as UN Secretary-General, nor are there any such news coming from the official UN sources.
KOFI-18 is thus closed as FALSE, returning zero moolers per share.
This week’s Economist reports on a market set up to predict the global flu outbreak. On a related note, BIRD-FLU-07 has been trading on the PublicGyan exchange since late-September 2005.
In their study, Dr Polgreen and his colleagues gave 60 doctors and nurses based in Iowa 100 “flu dollars” each. The participants used these to buy and sell shares coded according to the CDC’s colours for a particular week in the future, based on how many cases they thought would occur in the state during that week. For example, if a physician saw three young children with flu symptoms in his office, he might sell any yellow shares he had for the following week and buy red ones. Conversely, if no one he saw seemed to have trouble with influenza, he might buy more yellow or green (sporadic activity) shares for each of the next few weeks.Over the course of the flu season from October 2004 to April 2005, 52 participants logged into the market as traders. They were able to buy and sell up to seven weeks in advance. At the end of the experiment, each flu dollar was converted into a real one and given to the participants in the form of an educational grant.
During the course of the season, the participants traded 8,072 shares with a total value of $2,392. And it worked. The flu market was able to predict the colour of a given week with 80% accuracy, two to three weeks in advance. With a lead time of four weeks, it was able to get within one colour either side 90% of the time. These results were better than existing methods, despite the fact that predictions were for the whole state while two-thirds of the traders were concentrated in the eastern part of it, near the university.
This year, the researchers plan to expand the experiment by recruiting more participants over a larger area of Iowa, in order to see if they get better prediction data. If that works, the market will be expanded to cover the whole country – The Economist