First have a look at this page detailing the accuracy of iPredict over the last year.

Eric Crampton explains some of it here.

And my weekly picks are out:

Bye Bye Wanganui

The market thinks Wanganui is a goner, with CITY.WANGANUI languishing at just under 10c. CITY.WHANGANUI is at 60c, having dropped from 80c earlier in the week. I thought it was over-priced at 80c and sold at 75c as a dual name is a real option and CITY.BOTH is trading at 20c.

Sell of the Week

ZIM.MUGABE pays out if Mugabe goes by the end of the year. It started the year at 75c and is now at 13c. There is nothing to suggest he could lose power by year end so a sell now gets a 15% return over three months.

A tale of two parties

There are two stocks – MP.TIZARD and MP.POWELL that will pay $1 if a List MP leaves Parliament before the next election for the Labour and National parties, as that will see Judith Tizard and Conway Powell respectively enter Parliament.

Now their caucuses are of similar size – 43 MP and 58 MPs, so one would expect MP.TIZARD to be no less than three quarters the price of MP.POWELL. However the Tizard stock is at 20c and Powell at 57c. So what explains the difference? My pick is that the Labour leadership will move heaven and earth not to lose a List MP for the next two years, as a return of Tizard would damage their brand. That certainly seems to be the assumption the market is making.

Highest Trading Stocks

The 91.OCT09 petrol series had trades of over $13,000. CONFSEP09.VHIGH traded close to $6,000 and CITY.WHANGANUI has $3,000 of trades.