H5N1 Prediction Market -- Trading Tips
Posted here are suggestions and comments which might make your participation in this prediction market easier or more interesting. New tips will be distributed by email once monthly and then appended below.
- Trade as often as you like.
We send reminders once a week and offer an activity payment for one response each week. However, the market is open around the clock. Anytime you have new information about H5N1 or simply have time to check in, feel free to log into the market and trade. - Trade in markets where you feel comfortable or have knowledge and expertise.
Some traders have expressed the feeling that the number of questions we address is slightly overwhelming. While you are most welcome to trade in all of them, you need not feel that obligation. For instance, if you are a veterinarian then you might want to concentrate your attention on markets predicting animal H5N1. - Trader holdings on the Electronic Broker are updated with a lag.
Based on your input into the Electronic Broker, shares in the Yes and No contracts for each question are being purchased and sold for you. While transactions on your trading account might occur immediately, the resulting portfolio holdings displayed on the Electronic Broker page are updated only every 2 hours. - We have two user interfaces, a user friendly "Electronic Broker," and a more flexible "Trader Screen."
You might prefer one over the other, so we recommend you try out both. The Trader Screen gives you more control over your market transaction, but it requires some understanding of financial market terminology, and it may take a bit longer to accomplish the same transactions. If you do use the Trader Screen, note that everything in blue on the screen is a link to additional information. In particular, clicking on the market name in the top right corner of the screen will take you to a brief summary of the details on that market. - WHO's definition of Europe includes Greenland, Russia, Israel, and many other countries one wouldn't normally consider as part of Europe.
For a map of WHO-Europe, you can go to http://www.euro.who.int/countryinformation. - We rely on WHO to confirm the number and location of human cases of H5N1.
There may be delays in the posting of cases by WHO, and cases reported elsewhere may not be confirmed by WHO. As a recent example, cases in Indonesia were confirmed by WHO after an abnormally long delay. Should the deadline for a prediction market contract pass, those contracts will be liquidated according to the most recent posting of case counts by WHO. They will be regarded, for the purposes of this market, as being the final results and will not change even if subsequent WHO postings might lead to different results.