iPredict Discussion Forums - Closed Stocks

Re: Higgs Boson to be observed before 2011? 2012?

Lanthanide — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:49:06 +1200

I think closing it early was the right thing to do, but the way it should have been closed is all trades that took place when the 'news' of the impending announcement first broke should have been reversed and the contract closed at it's previous (flat-line) trading price. The justification for this being that it wasn't until that news article came out that people started looking at the sigma values and exactly what 95% was counted as for sigma.

The current admin is a lot more permissive and willing to close contracts prior to their strict closing conditions when it is obvious that closing early is appropriate (for example, the falun gong contract and other political contracts that closed after 2 days < 2.5%). Hopefully under the current admin, the specific fiasco around this stock won't happen.]]>

Re: Higgs Boson to be observed before 2011? 2012?

hidn — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:24:49 +1200

If iPredict wants to be credible then it has to leave the stocks open for people to trade on, it can't just go and shut stocks as it likes for dubious reasons, or for no obvious reason at all in the case of these HIGGS stocks. I think the whole situation was handled poorly, but the following problems stand out:

1) The stock was poorly drafted, but the original intent was always clear and the problems were well understood by everybody. I pointed out on the forums in late 2009 that there were problems in the definition, so everybody new about them. Instead of accepting this admin then went and modified the contract definition after launch. On top of this, he completely ignored the known problems and made a mess of the redraft, thereby increasing ambiguity rather than eliminating it. If you are going to modify the contract definition once because of poor drafting then why not go and modify it twice and fix the problem?

2) Even with this ambiguity in the contract though there is still no reason that the stock couldn't have been left up, and settled according to the judging criteria laid out in the contract definition.

3) The close came out of left field. The first I knew about it was when I saw the cash and portfolio values in my account change a day after it happened. There was no warning here at all. Not long before closing this off admin had a blog post about what the rising values for the stock might mean, which implied a willingness to leave this to the market and an endorsement of trading activity on the stock. This is a bit deceptive if admin is just trying to talk up the stock value before closing it unannounced.

On top of this, there are problems with the value that the stock was paid out at:

4) If you must close the stock early, then surely you should unwind trades leading up to the closing? A precedent for this was set with the NZF vote share stock in the lead up to the election.

5) I think at the time this stock was paid out at the "weighted average" for the previous month, although this appears to be weighted by volume, not by time. This sets a really bad precedent, for the obvious reason that with a market maker in place somebody who wants to increase the price of the stock as judged by volume-weighted average can simply repeat buys and sells against the market maker without moving the price significantly in the process. The "weighted average" will simply tend to the last price, making the whole thing a sham. This issue will be a huge problem in the future when people suspect that a stock might be prematurely closed. If you must close a stock (which, again, wasn't necessary with HIGGS) at a weighted average then surely you should use a time-weighted average over the past month of trading, excluding the final week or so of trading.

6) Alternatively, just close the stock at time value of money. This is where it had been sitting for the previous two years anyway. The "market" spent two years saying that this was always going to close at $0, so just close it at $0, or at $0.01 if you insist on closing it a month or so before it was due to close at $0 anyway.

7) Should also be pointed out that there were significant asymmetries in trading fees and liquidity for buyers and sellers on this one. This also meant the stock was trading higher than it would have been without trading fees or the need to pay the deposit on shorts. This effect needs to be taken into account when picking a price to close the stock at. Also, if you are going to close a stock early (which you shouldn't) then all trading fees wasted on it should be refunded as well.

I would also like to point that admin didn't handle the communication on this one too well either. His statement that I had been "made whole" was disingenuous, and particularly grating considering that I was clearly a couple of hundred dollars worse off. On top of that I have had no replies to several of my posts in the forum asking for clarification on the circumstances that this was closed. People are coughing up real money to trade here, admin, so show a bit more respect please.

Again, I'm not satisfied with the outcome and I think the only fair solution here if for iPredict to retroactively pay out all the short positions on this at $0. I've always traded in good faith, and have accepted some fairly significant losses on contracts before, including the WANGANUI ones which, although I disagreed with the judgement, I accepted because the contract risks were known to traders from well before it closed. I want iPredict to return the good faith on these contracts which were erroneously closed by paying them out at $0.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

maxb — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:36:38 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

gr — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:06:25 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

maxb — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:19:35 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

gr — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:20:13 +1300

Hell even someone in NZ first should have loaded up and used it to raise some party funds.

Judging by the overnight changes in the net worth table, I assume that traders Spartan and/or mrh are actually Winston himself ;)

Interesting that DPF didn't change in terms of net worth. Presumably he withdrew exactly what he claims to have won so as not to disclose his position?]]>

Re: Maori/National Confidence & Supply Agreement

admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:34:36 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

TraderV — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:24:55 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

Shazzadude — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:08:11 +1300

I note DPF claimed this stock on the news as an astute investment.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

maxb — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:41:59 +1300

I also question the value of such stocks as predictors of events, which is ostensibly the purpose of this site.... they seem more like a straight gamble to me.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

thedoctor — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:31:10 +1300

For this stock it is less clear. The stock could start rising as soon as Winston start misbehaving, but before he is actually kicked out. For the Apple share price stock it could be that one trader has a live feed while another does not.

I say admin SHOULD consider suspending stocks when it is known when the stock will close. For ones like this, predicting something will happen before a certain date, I don't think it is fair to start to unwind stocks.

So theoretically I agree with closing stocks when admin knows for sure when it will trigger, but in general terms, as you were. I note that the admin does often reduce liquidity before political events are likely to be decided, for obvious reasons.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

kernels — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:22:20 +1300

There is a line somewhere between predicting (trading) and gambling. That is basically the difference between Ipredict and the TAB, we get the opportunity to change our positions once things start going against us.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

rene_lp — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:20:28 +1300

-------------------------------------------------------
> I actually think that quite a few of the suggested
> stocks are based around people wanting to make
> money on being the fastest news-readers when the
> event happens, not because they're actually
> interested in predicting the event.

Not sure if serious.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

Lanthanide — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:25:19 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:28:59 +1300

in principle look back at the trading price as it was before the news broke and declare after the fact the end of trading there, and of course declare this in the contract to make sure people understand this. Some traders will I think feel with some justification upset that trades after the event will not be honoured. Though some traders occasionally feel upset that those trades are honoured under the current system.

There is likely to be ambiguity in when the news broke, in some instances - though not the Winston contracts today, which is clear. It would save iPredict money on market maker costs, and equally reduce transfers going to traders. Just some thoughts.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

maxb — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:02:20 +1300

These stocks were a bit unusual in that they covered a specific event that could happen at any time without warning. When it happens, it's a race to the computer.]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

gr — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:50:21 +1300

To float an idea/play devil's advocate - if stocks could be closed "as at" their last trading price before a payout event takes place, would anyone have strong objections? Bear with me as I endeavour to explain...

In the present case, all three stocks immediately shot up from about 5c to $1 - not because anyone accurately predicted anything (I assume), but because someone happened to be watching parliamentary TV or was in the gallery itself. At that moment, the market stopped reflecting "predictions" and simply became a game of fastest finger.

If iPredict were able to close out the stock by using the trading positions immediately before the expulsion, then people would most fairly be rewarded or punished for their predictions. As it stands at the moment, all the people with short positions lost out, which is fair, but so did a bunch of people with standing short orders simply because they couldn't cancel those orders soon enough after the fact. I suggest that probably isn't fair: it punishes people for pro-actively seeding the market but not being quick enough to react to a payout event.

Similarly, the people with long positions got paid - great. But a select few who were watching the actual event live and happened to be near a computer (note: nothing to do with their predictive skills) made extra money by gobbling up the standing short orders/market maker.

One of the obvious downsides is that I assume it would be an administrative nightmare to unwind trades that people will make after the event. Plus, in less clear cases, there will be debate over what constitutes an event that should trigger a payout.

I suppose also that when admin knows a payout is looming, the market maker is switched to 1, which helps. But I can't help but wonder if there's scope for some improvement in situations such as the Winston stocks... thoughts?]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:33:17 +1300

Looks like TV3 will be covering this

[twitter.com]]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

blondie — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:13:40 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

Hamish — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:08:57 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

peteremcc — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:17:02 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

mrh — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:15:03 +1300

Re: Maori/National Confidence & Supply Agreement

muncha1 — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:37:18 +1300

Re: Next Privileges Committee Chair

Shazzadude — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:06:39 +1300

-------------------------------------------------------
> I hope the eagle eyed trader who sought
> clarification at least got a head start on this.
> Unless I have missed something, could we have this
> closed please admin?

"iPredict may delay closing these contracts in order to determine if an announcement in fact had occurred before the specified cutoff time - but will not extend the cutoff itself."]]>

Re: Next Privileges Committee Chair

thedoctor — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:03:34 +1300

Unless I have missed something, could we have this closed please admin?]]>

Re: Next Privileges Committee Chair

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:24:07 +1300

Each contract specifies:

"If no announcement is made before 1 March 2012 this contract will close at $0. Dates and times NZ time."

If no announcement has been made regarding the chair of the Privileges Committee at or before 11:59pm tonight (i.e. before 1 March 2012) NZ time then all SC.PRV.[NAME] contracts will close at $0 and SC.PRV.OTHER, which is defined as paying $1 minus the sum of payouts from other SC.PRV.x contracts, will close at $1.

iPredict may delay closing these contracts in order to determine if an announcement in fact had occurred before the specified cutoff time - but will not extend the cutoff itself.

All contracts in this bundle include the following statement: "This contract will be closed no later than 3 working days after the Close Date. The Close Date may be extended if the event outcome cannot be determined by that date." This statement should not be interpreted to mean announcements on or after 1 March will be taken into account - only that iPredict may seek clarification of whether conditions had been met in time.]]>

Re: Next Privileges Committee Chair

mrh — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:40:13 +1300

[www.parliament.nz]

(Edited to add not. Yes, I misread a website. Fortunately it does not appear to have been an expensive mistake)]]>

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

maxb — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:53:59 +1300

Re: Winston Peters be ordered to leave the House

Lanthanide — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:33:14 +1300

Maori/National Confidence & Supply Agreement

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:46:21 +1300

[www.ipredict.co.nz]]]>