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Reports and Alerts for Prediction Markets

So, what information do you want to see in prediction markets?

Reports and Alerts for Prediction Markets

Certainly graphs that show the price history and volume with Open/High/Low/Close is mandatory. It would be nice if these graphs could be both snapshots and updating (i.e. provide links that show a period in time and links that show most recent).

For an individual they (and admins) will want to know Open Orders and Order History on a per user or a per security basis (or per user per security, perhaps).

Another graph I've heard of is the "Shape of the Book" that would show a list of all open orders with their volume on bid and ask sides. This would let a trader know how far they would need to go in price to fulfill an order of a certain size. Interestingly enough InTrade provides a small amount of this information (the first 20 records or so) while some of the others you have to sign up to get to a point where you could see so I don't know...

Some other interesting informtion is some "arbitrager's helper" functions such as "If this set of contracts is worth what it trades at, what does that imply about other prices in the market". For example, in a Democratic Nomination for 2008 $1 contract if Hillary trades at 40 cents, Obama and Edwards trade at 20 cents, and the Field trades at 25 cents then there is a market inefficiency because one of the items is trading too high. In this case a trader would be best off, for example, buying an entire book and selling the pieces individually (though it probably indicates an illiquid market where that action wouldn't be possible).

Alerting Systems

There are probably a few channels of alerts that should be created as well. Delivery mechanisms would ideally be up to user preference between RSS, Email, SMS on a per channel basis.

  • Trade alerts (executed, marked invalid, etc.)
  • Price alerts (above/below a limit)
  • New offer alerts
  • General system alerts (introduction of new features, policies, maintenance)

Any other reports or alerts that traders are going to want?

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