by Willy Franzen on January 20, 2010

Rarely do we feature companies that aren’t at least partially US based, but sometimes there are companies so interesting or relevant that I have to share them with you even though it would require a serious move (and probably some visa acrobatics) for you to land a job with them. Today we’re going to look at Ireland’s Intrade, a company that runs prediction markets. I originally learned about Intrade from Freakonomics
, but I became more interested yesterday with the election in Massachusetts. A prediction market falls somewhere between betting and investing—it allows you to buy contracts that either pay out or don’t based on a given outcome. For example there was a time yesterday before polls closed when you could have purchased a contract for $70 that would have paid out $100 if the Republican nominee, Scott Brown, won the Massachusetts Senate election. The price of a contract reflects the probability that a given event will happen—a $70 contract represents a 70% likelihood.
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by Willy Franzen on December 16, 2009

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who is convinced that everyone in Chicago is a consultant. I know a lot of consultants here, but my take is a little different. I’m pretty sure that every guy that I’ve met here who is between the ages of 23 and 32 is a “trader.” They never tell you what they trade unless you ask—it almost seems like they’re being evasive. Maybe it’s all about creating a mystique about being a trader. Anyway, one of my “trader” friends happens to work at Jump Trading (he likes it), a high-frequency trading shop based here in Chicago. From what I can tell on their website, Jump Trading is less concerned with what they’re trading and more concerned with how they’re trading. They put a huge emphasis on technology, and they’re trying to take advantage of the fact that “the world financial markets are becoming faster, more complex, and more automated every day.”
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Illinois,
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