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.