doloop's dashboard

Sooner or later some users will have phenomenal bucks (Bill Gates/Warren Buffet type bucks) that will render the leader board pretty meaningless. By resetting, you recharge the board and the competition. Hubdub could always track performance on leaderboards just like music, for example - anaverageamerican has been in the top 20 for 10 weeks!

Oh ... it was Nigel who suggested it. Sorry, I was in a hurry.

I agree almost entirely with InfernalMachine - but tarheelv is correct that the "leaderboard" does attract a lot of users and fire up the competitive juices. I am not sure who suggested it, but RESETTING the leaderboard every week or so, so that everyone begins anew is a very good suggestion. People with large pocketbooks can beat up many others with it. Resetting the leaderboard regularly would solve that problem.

I could not cash out on the suspended question. And I did not know if they were going to void the question (as the creator of the question asked them to do) or if they were going to let it pay off. Without knowing what Hubdub was going to do, I had to assess the probabilities of what they would do vs. what my offsetting positions would do. My conclusion - I had to sit tight and take my beating and not potentially make it worse.

That still does not answer the question, why should I not be able to exit the position when I have decided, for whatever reason, that it is no longer a good investment?

Ooo ... InfernalMachine - I like the way you think! (regarding selling the right to "mentor" others or "rent" action for a portion of the take!)

Have you considered moving to Vegas?

I agree with the comments of tarheelv and InfernalMachine above. I found a great arbitrage opportunity yesterday in the questions regarding whether the DOW would be up today. I placed bets on both sides choosing to purchase the cheapest answer in both markets. I locked in a nice profit ... UNTIL Hubdub suspended one of the questions!!!!! Now I am stuck in 1/2 of an arbitrage deal which is no arbitrage at all.

What I did was perfectly legitimate. (I did not create either of the questions - I just found an "inefficiency in the market".) THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT REAL MARKETS DO. If Hubdub thinks they need to regulate that, then Hubdub does not understand markets.

The fact of the matter is that people like me (and I suspect there are many on Hubdub) will quickly find the questions with "odds" that are not realistic and we will act within the market quickly to change that. Therefore permitting people like us to play the game for short term gains is one of the primary mechanisms that will ensure that the questions do accurately reflect reality.

I like the idea of keeping the creator of the question from voting on the question for 12 hours. That is plenty of time for people like me to correct any unrealistic predictions made by the question creator. However, why should we, who are making this market work, not be permitted to cash out. We have done our job. For example, 2 days ago I sold CVX (Chevron) for 84.80 and yesterday I bought it back for 82.51 for a nice profit. Should I expect the New York stock exchange to call me today and say that I am not playing fairly?