Submitted by Thom Hoge02.20.2008
This prediction is closed and has been judged.
GOOG closed on 3.31.08 at $440.47; the community was correct. --The Industry Standard
Days of $700's are gone and we should expect to see Google's stock's hoover around $500, but will close the quarter below $500.
This prediction requires the stock price to be on or below $500.00 (US) by the closing bell on March 31, 2008.
Prediction Statistics
| Betting Closes: | Mar 31 2008 | Current Consensus: | 98.02% | Total Bets: | 152 |
| Today's Change: | 0.32% | ||||
| Life Time High: | 98.02% | ||||
| Life Time Low: | 46.26% |
Most Active Predictions
Suggest a Prediction
If a suggestion you submit to The Exchange is accepted, your account will receive S$25,000.00 Standard dollars
Suggest Predictions View all suggestions
Comments
I'm not sure I understand why this hasn't settled yet. Surely with GOOG trading at $433 that qualifies as "the stock price below $500.00 (US) by the closing bell on March 31, 2008." Noting in that criteria requires that we wait until the quarter ends.
It does say, "by the closing bell on March 31, 2008." Does that not mean we wait until March 31 and see what the price is when the bell rings? Tom, was that your original intention? We assumed you were looking to predict (and make a bet) that the stock price would be under $500 on March 31st, hence why it hasn't been closed early.
I would say that waiting until March 31 would require language similar to "at the closing bell on March 31, 2008." Using the word "by" in place of "at" should trigger this event at any point in time between when it starts and the end-date.
If we have a proposition that Yahoo! will accept Microsoft's offer by March15th, we would consider it a success if the acceptance is made on March 14th. If we have a proposition that Microsoft will release an interactive 3D technology ON February 29th, then releasing said technology on Feb 28th or March 1st would result in failure.
Prepositions matter. And they have meaning.
You're ignoring the "will close the quarter below $500" bit, though.
Neither the title nor the judging requirement statement include that, however.
I'd say that the text and title are subordinate to the judging criteria. Had the judging statement been "This prediction requires the stock price to be on or below $500.00 (US) AT the closing bell on March 31, 2008." then I would agree with you. With the current text of that statement this proposition should be closed and judged at 100%.
It's only going to matter for the time value of the money and opportunity cost in other propositions, as there's no way GOOG is going to gain 16% in less than 2 weeks. As a philosphy-of-how-this-site-is-run issue, however, it would be really nice to gain some clarification here.
Here's the text from the somewhat similar $700 proposition:
"Google's stock price, currently trading just above $500 per share, has been pummeled recently since reaching a high of $741.29 in late 2007. Will it be equal to or greater than $700 per share on April 1, 2008?"
THAT is clear that it's talking about the price at the end of the quarter. Had this proposition been similarly worded we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Could raise questions if it's flirting around $700 on April 1st, but closes below that threshold, after breaking it during intraday trading. Not going to happen, but still a good example of insufficiently well-written text.
Bradley--
As you noted, didn't make much of a difference in the end, but we appreciate your input and are making a really conscientious effort to be extra clear, especially on predictions written by members of the the community who haven't necessarily been through the learning curve we have these first 6 weeks of operation. We hope that we show improvement ongoing.
Thanks for bearing with us!
Post new comment