next hot job occupation: terror trader
ummm. im not very knowledgable in futures trading but this is absurd. if this is their best idea i think they need to go back to the drawing board with some fresh thinkers.
i understand the attractive efficiency aspects but it strikes me as ridiculous. can anyone rationalize this?
ummm. im not very knowledgable in futures trading but this is absurd. if this is their best idea i think they need to go back to the drawing board with some fresh thinkers.
i understand the attractive efficiency aspects but it strikes me as ridiculous. can anyone rationalize this?
from cnn
The program is called the Policy Analysis Market. The Pentagon office overseeing it, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, said it was part of a research effort "to investigate the broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks."
Traders would buy and sell futures contracts -- just like energy traders do now in betting on the future price of oil. But the contracts in this case would be based on what might happen in the Middle East in terms of economics, civil and military affairs or specific events, such as terrorist attacks.
Holders of a futures contract that came true would collect the proceeds of traders who put money into the market but predicted wrong.
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But in its statement Monday, DARPA said markets could reveal "dispersed and even hidden information. Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often better than expert opinions."
According to its Web site, the Policy Analysis Market would be a joint program of DARPA and two private companies, Net Exchange, a market technologies company, and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of the publisher of The Economist magazine.
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The Web site does not address how much money investors would be likely to put into the market but says analysts would be motivated by the "prospect of profit and at pain of loss" to make accurate predictions.
Trading is to begin October 1. The market would initially be limited to 1,000 traders, increasing to at least 10,000 by January 1.