- Why did Jenni Peterson give clues to her competitors?
- Why didn’t she keep the information (see comments #6 and #7) close to her chest instead?
- Do the traders who use play money are more talkative than the traders who use real money?
- Shouldn’t an event derivative trader beam out false signals instead of helping his/her competitors?
- Do trading induce solidarity, paradoxally?
Hey, I’ve been blogged about. That’s kinda cool.
I think there are a variety of reasons for it… and many other traders will have differing opinions and strategies… my thoughts:
1) If you’ll notice, I didn’t post that information in the text of the market. My initial instinct was to make people work for it, but when someone posted what I thought was a very bad comparison number (the debates) I did want to correct the market back downward. What I didn’t post, was my actual best guess for the market (about 35 million) — based on Obama’s DNC speech ~ 38 million — which indeed turned out to be the best basis for comparison [actual = 33 million].
2) The value of our predictions are based in large part on what other people think as well. If I ever wanted the chance to cash out my predictions before settlement, then I needed more people to agree with me, so the value went up. (My predictions had been made prior to posting the comments)
3) I don’t think its the play money aspect — Hubdub is designed to be social. We do chat amongst ourselves and post relevant news, polls, opinions.. but after we’ve already registered our wagers! And there are many, many, many cases of people posting misleading information in the hopes of leading traders off course to get better odds (I’ve frequently been guilty of that in the gallup markets, which I track obsessively)
Thanks. Let me think about all that.
“there are many, many, many cases of people posting misleading information in the hopes of leading traders off course to get better odds”
-
Very interesting. Thanks.
-
So traders need external, unbiased sources of information.
-
I’m an information aggregator, not a gambler. If I can find relevant information that the market doesn’t seem to be valuing properly, here is my desired strategy: buy the underpriced shares, present the evidence, and sell the shares at fair market value. The longer I have to hold shares, the more information risk I carry (as new data is coming out constantly) and the more it is like gambling. Unless something is a “sure thing” I rarely want to hold shares until contract expiry, because again there is the chance element that I am uninterested in. So to reduce my undesired “new information”/gambling risk, I want to convince other traders that my information is valid, then close my position.
-
Thus, I agree with Jenni most strongly on her reason #2.
Jason, you’re right, I haven’t thought enough about that. A trader would buy based on the researched clues, and then disclose them to the other traders —and then maybe sell after the rise of the event derivative price.
Have you read Asensio’s book, Sold Short?
You talking to me?
No, haven’t read.