New Markttrend Poll Results

Should the German cities and town districts be allowed to determine their share of the income tax themselves?


yes: 27%
no:  73%

Link to poll

What's new on Markttrend.com

Minimize your losses, restructure your portfolio with the new joker or invest in the new iPad 2011 prediction market.

New Market: iPad 2011 sales forecast

The iPad has been a success so far, but current predictions for 2011 ranging from 20 to over 50 Million units reflect the high uncertainty of exactly how fast this market will grow over the next year. Instead of throwing in another wild guess we will simply find out with our new prediction market.

Closed Market: company open source

Due to very low trading volumes we closed the open source market on Friday, 12^th November.

Bonus: Big Joker

Every user will receive an additional big joker this week to minimize losses in his current investments. To use it simply select the joker when selling a stock with loss.

Markttrend prediction market Poll: How will the situation at the US job market evolve over the next 6 months?

Poll Results: situation on US job market will.....

improve : 50%
stay the same: 44%
worsen: 6%

View poll

What's new on Markttend mrediction markets this week

This week is all about the US economy.

New Market: Dow Jones May 2011 forecast

When we last closed our Dow Jones prediction market the Dow was down at 10.000 points. Our long term trend indicated a recovery in the following weeks, but the strong surge of over 1000 points was much higher than predicted. Despite the recovery of the markets, the high unemployment rate remains steady. Even the expected new round of quantitative easing (QE2) may not change the pace of recovery and the mid-term elections raise the fear of a political deadlock in the US. So let’s see what the future holds for the Dow.

Closed Market: party votes Germany

We will close some markets where users haven’t been active for a while to make way for new forecasts. The first in line is the “party votes Germany” market which hasn’t seen a lot of trades during the past three month. The market will close on Friday the 5^th.

Markttrend weekly Poll - German Federal President Christian Wulff

How would you rate the current German Federal President Christian Wulff on a scale from 1 (very good) to 5 (terrible)?

2 - 25%

3 - 58%

4 - 17%

Link to poll

What's new on Markttrend Prediction Markets

We start a new prediction market on the thriving smartphone market this week and we have fixed a major bug that caused a lot of problems for new users.

New Market: Smartphone sales Q1 2011

Big technology companies are struggling to increase their stake in the fast growing Smartphone market which is still dominated by the Symbian operating system. Apple has certainly scored a success with its iPhone but Google is catching up with its Android platform and Microsoft is relaunching its mobile efforts with its brand new Windows phone 7. So let’s see what this all comes down to in the next few months.

Fixed Bug: user initialization

Due to changes of the log-in process new users where not properly initialized and could therefore not trade in markets. Additionally this failed process caused display problems in some browsers while viewing a prediction market after the first log-in.

Markttrend Poll: Currency Crisis

Link to poll

calm down:                  46%
maintain status quo:     31%
exacerbate:                   23%

What's new on Markttrend Prediction Markets

Our poll puts a light on the so called “currency war” and a new market will measure if Apple’s stocks will live up to the hype.

New Market: Apple share price forecast 2011

Apple has come a long way from an almost dead niche player to one of the biggest Tech companies in the world and a role model for the consumer electronic industry. Only five years ago Apple stocks surpassed the 50$/share mark. Now one share trades for well over $300. But can Apple live up to the hype and further increase its market cap? We are eager to find out.

Updated Feature: Winners & Losers

On the Depot page you can access the shares that have gained or lost the most in the current week via the winners & losers tab. The window will now display the absolute gains and losses rather than the percentage points. This will drive attention away from penny stocks that often gain many percentage points (+300%), but mot much in absolute terms (from 0.01$ to 0.04$).

Markttrend Poll: Polls indicate a defeat at the upcoming Midterm elections. So we pose the Question will Obama be reelected in two years?

This week our poll focuses on US politics. As defeat at the midterm elections for the Democrats and especially Obama seems inevitable, we shed light on the next presidential election in 2012.

Link to Obama Poll

yes: 54%

no : 46%

What's new on Markttrend prediction markets this week

We will look into the so called “currency war” this week and our poll focuses on US politics.

New Market: US Dollar/Renminbi Yuan 2011 forecast

In the aftermath of the financial crisis many countries struggle to get back on track. After the debt crisis in the Euro-zone and massive doubts about the recovery in the US, the next big threat to global economy is the fear of a currency war. So we think its time to extend our currency prediction portfolio to the Chinese Yuan Renminbi with a new prediction market.

Closed Market: iPad sales prediction

The Apple iPad has literally been flying of the shelf. Our forecast has been 6 Million and more with more than 99% probability for quite a while now. As our prediction range of “6 Million plus” sold units will be reached soon we will close this prediction market on October 17^th.

Markttrend Umfrage zu Stuttgart 21

Sollte die Politik an dem Projekt Stuttgart 21 wie geplant festhalten?

ja:      31%
nein:  69%

Link zur Umfrage 

What's new on Markttrend prediction markets this week

A new market focuses on Microsoft’s browser and we give you more data about our prediction markets.

New Market: Internet Explorer market share 2011

Once there was one browser to rule them all. Nowadays Microsoft is still the dominant force, but seems unable to stop the downward trend of its Internet Explorer browser. We take a look into the future to see what it holds for the IE.

New Feature: market start & end dates

In every market we will now display the start and (if possible) the end date. In the past we often used the newsletter or the news section of our site to announce the finish date of a prediction market. Due to the short timeframe from the announcement to the actual closing users where often caught by surprise. This is why we have decided to display further information about the start and end below the market question in every market.

Neue Markttrend Umfrage zum Umfragehoch der Grünen

Die Hälfte der Umfrageteilnehmer ist der Meinung, die Grünen profitieren vor allem von der Schwäche der anderen Parteien. Die andere Hälfte der Befragten sieht den aktuellen Trend zumindest teilweise in der Parteipolitik begründet.

Umfrage zum Wahltrend der Grünen

Link zum Prognosemarkt Parteienwahl

New features this week:

We introduce another new market this week and we make it easier for you to get rid of your losses.

New Market: Euro/US-Dollar 2011

An ongoing Expansionary monetary policy in the USA, remaining doubts over the debt of many European countries and maybe a US-Chinese trade war. The list of parameters affecting the future value of the worlds leading currencies gets longer by the minute. Time to shine light into the darkness.

New Feature: increased joker

Since we introduced our joker system back in 2008 many users used the daily joker to reduce losses and alter their investment decisions. The value of this joker is now increased from 10 to 30 points. Furthermore the small joker can now reduce your losses by 70 instead of 50 points.

Markttrend Poll: Is 3D cinema really better than 2D cinema?

Most users think that the 3D experience at the cinema is not generally superior to good old 2D movies. 

Link: poll results

New features this week:

This week we introduce another market and a new feature that lets you travel back in time.

New Market: Gold price 2011

The gold price is reaching new heights as investors seek save havens for their money. A bumpy road to recovery and the massive debt of most major economies is fueling the fear and driving up the price of gold. But will it last or is this just a temporary bubble? A new market will find out.

New Feature: view old markets

We have made a lot of predictions since the start of the platform in 2008. Now we give you the opportunity to go back and check some of the old predictions, at least the ones we made in markets open to the public. They will be displayed on the markets page below the currently active markets.

Markttrend Umfrage zur Laufzeitverlängerung der Atomkraftwerke.

Link zur aktuellen Umfrage

Zwischenergebnis:

83% nein

17% ja

Neue Funktion auf Markttrend : Langzeitprognose

Diese neue Funktion erlaubt es uns, Prognosen über den Zeitraum eines Prognosemarkts hinaus zu erstellen.

Die Idee dazu hatten wir schon eine ganze Weile, insbesondere nach den Erfahrungen mit den stark schwankenden Aktienmärkten unter dem Einfluss der Finanzkrise. Mitunter zeigte sich, dass die Prognosen zum Ablauf eines Marktes sehr stark von kurzfristigen Ereignissen geprägt werden und nicht viel über die generelle Tendenz eines Marktes in den darauf folgenden Wochen und Monaten aussagen. Daher experimentierten wir etwas mit den Möglichkeiten herum, die sich aus unseren Daten ergaben. Ziel war es, eine längerfristige Prognose zu errechnen – den Markttrend Langzeittrend.

Um diese Abstrakte Umschreibung mit etwas Leben zu füllen, hier ein aktuelles Beispiel, das die Vorzüge verdeutlicht:

Unser Dow Jones Markt schloss mit der Prognose von <10200 Punkten für den 31.08.2010 (reales Ergebnis: 10014 Punkte). Der errechnete Langzeittrend lag jedoch bei 10500 Punkten. Dies deutete trotz der schlechten Stimmung auf eine Erholung des Dow hin und tatsächlich ist er seit dieser Zeit schrittweise auf über 10500 Punkte gestiegen (stand 13.09.2010).

Ein weiteres Beispiel ist die DAX-Prognose von 6006 Punkten zum 1.6.2010 (reales Ergebnis: 5981). Hier lautete die Langzeitprognose 6050 Punkte. In den kommenden 3 Monaten schwankte der DAX um diese Marke zwischen 5670 und 6350 Punkten.

Nachdem wir diese Funktion eine Weile getestet haben, schalten wir sie nun, sofern verfügbar, für unsere Nutzer frei.

Prognoseauswertung: Prognose des Dax in der Finanzkrise

Nachdem wir bereits über 75 Märkte aufgesetzt haben zeigt sich, dass gerade im Finanzbereich die Prognosen eine überaus hohe Qualität erreichen. Ein besonders interessantes Beispiel ist der DAX Prognosemarkt während der Finanzkrise. Der Prognosezeitraum lag zwischen dem 29.10.2008 und dem 01.04.2009. In dieser Zeit schwankte der Dax zwischen 3590 und 5300 Punkten. Die Unsicherheit an den Finanzmärkten war enorm und einige Analysten sahen den Dax unter die Marke von 2500 Punkten sinken.

Im Gegensatz dazu blieb die Prognose relativ stabil. So lag die Endprognose mit 4.135 Punkten nicht sonderlich weit von der Durchschnittsprognose (Querschnitt über die gesamte Laufzeit des Marktes) mit 4.158 Punkten entfernt.

Das reale Ergebnis lag bei 4.131 Punkten. Das heißt trotz enormer Unsicherheit wich die Prognose nur unwesentlich ab.

Mit Sicherheit ist dies nur ein Einzelereignis und nicht dazu geeignet die Genauigkeit von Prognosemärkten zu beweisen. Dennoch zeigt das Beispiel wie gut sich diese Märkte auch in einem schwierigen Umfeld behaupten können.

Ob es möglich ist Krisen dieser Art vorherzusehen, bleibt abzuwarten. Allerdings gibt es Mechanismen die Risiken von Prognosen zu bewerten. Wenn dann die Krise tatsächlich eintritt, scheinen nach unseren Ergebnissen Prognosemärkte sehr gut geeignet zu sein die Folgen abzuschätzen, insbesondere dann, wenn alle anderen Berechnungsmodelle versagen und die Expertenmeinungen weit auseinander liegen.