From SFE blog Spontaneous Order:

This clip demonstrates that perhaps a crowd of “uneducated” people will be better at predicting futures than the experts.  Intrade, a website which hosts a slue of future markets, has had impressive results.  Intrade hosts future markets which are valued between $0.00 and $1.00.  $0.00 = 0% while $1.00 = 100%.  Users of this website use real money and invest in futures ranging from politics to the predictions of the stock market.  An example of a market follows: A market for Barrack Obama to win the presidency was recently on the website.  If he were valued at $0.80, that means that the aggregation of people believe Obama has an 80% chance to win the election.  This would leave McCain at 20%.  Lets say I invest 100 shares in McCain.  If he ends up winning (which we now know is false), I would profit $0.80 per share.  It’s a neet utility that seems to have some useful applications.  Check it out!

Sometimes I feel bad for reporters who are charged with producing up to the minute news on the financial world.  There are times when there just isn’t anything to say.  Take this headline from the AP:

“Stocks fluctuate as investors weigh economy”

Isn’t that kind of like saying, “the market is acting like the market, based on the things that make the market do what it does”?  At least the make-news people are simply looking for something to say, whereas the much more dangerous creatures in Washington are always trying to manufacture problems so they have something to do. And it’s never good for us.