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If you want to know who is going to win the 2008 U.S. presidential election, check out www.intrade.com. Intrade is an internet trading platform that provides a market for financial speculation on the outcome of future events - a commodities/futures market for predicting future events. Why is Intrade a good tool to get a handle on who is going to win the election? Because when people put their own money down on the outcome of a future event, they are going to be more discerning, careful, and studied as to the potential conclusion. They have something tangible to lose. They do their research. Why are pointspreads so accurate when it comes to predicting the outcome of sports events? Because people are putting down hard money on the projected outcome. The same principle holds true for Intrade. The speculator's pocketbook is personally more important than their particular political point of view or bias.

What kind of propositions does Intrade provide for? Intrade provides propositions for newsworthy events, financial propositions, entertainment news stories, political events and more. Markets that you can speculate on include the arts (how much a painting will be auctioned off for), the climate (when an offshore hurricane will hit the coast, for example), current events (propositions on the outcome of the Olympic games, if mad cow disease will be detected in the United States!), entertainment (who will win the Emmy awards), financial (predictions on the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes), political (the elections in the U.S.), and more. By the way, Intrade accurately predicted Joe Biden as the Democratic most probable V.P. selection for the 2008 presidential race.

Profit and loss is made by trading with other members of the site. Individuals buy contracts, just as you would buy a commodities contract, such as gold, gas, etc. The contracts represent the percentage probability of the event occurring. If a contract is held to the conclusion of a specified event and you have been of the "right side" of the proposition, congratulations! You have made money! As with options, you do not have to hold a contract to the conclusion of a specific event. Proposition prices change as contracts are bought and sold, just as with stocks and commodities. Intrade is truly a financial market.

Organizations that use the information provided by Intrade include the Federal Reserve, CNN, the New York Times, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, Wall Street investment houses and more.

So, back to the 2008 U.S. presidential election. As of this writing, according to the trading market on Intrade, Barack Obama has a 60.6 percent change of winning; McCain a 36.2 percent change of winning. Feeling astute and politically savvy? Lay your money down! Your insight could make you money!

Sources: www.intrade.com

Learn more about this author, Kenneth Sawhill.
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