DECISIONS, DECISIONS.(investment management)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 24-MAR-03

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

For months, traders on the world's stock and commodity exchanges have been preoccupied with one issue: war with Iraq. If you think that war will be over quickly, you buy stocks. If you believe that it will drag on, you sell them. And if you think that the Middle East will be plunged into chaos you buy gold. For speculators on the New York Merc or the International Petroleum Exchange, every trade is like a wager on what will happen, and when, to Saddam Hussein.

For speculators on web sites like TradeSports and NewsFutures.com, though, every trade actually is a wager on Saddam. At each of these sites, markets have been set up where, by buying and selling futures contracts, you can bet on such questions as when war will begin and when Saddam will fall. (The...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.