For those of you who love prediction markets (a variety of which we’ve written about in the past), there’s a new site that looks to be as vast, inclusive, and user-friendly as anything I’ve seen: Predictify. You can wager on standing bets (who will be the Yankees’ next manager, e.g.) or “tap collective wisdom” (I hope they’re paying Jim Surowiecki . . .
The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki recently devoted a column to the notorious “Seven Percent Rule.” For those unfamiliar with the phrase, it refers to the assumption that after a company announces major layoffs, its stock price will rise roughly 7% in an apparent correlation between employee downsizing and Wall Street enthusiasm. Surowiecki notes, however, that the rule’s validity took a . . .