Most uncertain things that people need to hedge (currency, commodity prices) already had a hedge.
In practical terms can someone really give me an example of how they benefited from knowing the future (materially, not emotionally) from a prediction they got from Kalshi? I am honestly curious.
[–] mahboi 5 days ago
[–] dozerly 5 days ago
These are not polling places, they are places for capital to influence odds.
[–] mahboi 5 days ago
Small elections are susceptible to corruption this way, though.
[–] AngryData 5 days ago
[–] dozerly 5 days ago
[–] mahboi 5 days ago
[–] buriram 5 days ago
That's way too narrow of the categories. Here are some more cases, and you tell me where can I hedge it? And don't tell me the answer is "go to Goldman Sachs and they create any kind of derivatives to hedge for you", that only works if you are a huge enterprise. I'm talking about SME, or even one person company with $1-5M ARR.
(By the way, I do trade on Polymarket / Kalshi, had a job interview with Kalshi many years ago but did not take their offer since I disagreed a lot with their product design. So all of this is my own opinion).
1. Suppose I run an ice cream shop in midtown Manhattan, and my foot traffic depends on how good the weather is. If it's sunny and dry, I expect a lot of traffic, vice versa, if it's thunderstorm, hurricane or snow, I would run the day without any revenue (and a lot of ice cream waste). What is the way for me to hedge weather risk that could seriously affect my business?
2. Suppose I'm a restaurant owner in Koreatown in LA, and during World Cup I run a restaurant expecting a lot of Korean coming to my area (and my restaurant). So I would ramp up my business, hiring a lot of staffs, sourcing a lot of ingredients from the vendors. Then the biggest risk (and anticipation) is that Korea would be knocked out very early, which unfortunately that precisely happened. So the foot traffic evaporated, and with that the revenue. How could I hedge that risk?
3. Suppose I'm a distributor / reseller who needs to import goods and products from other countries and resells it back to US for profit. Barring the import / export regulations, the biggest risk is tariffs: the orange man can (and did) impose 50% tariffs from China, and all the sudden I face a severe supply-demand imbalance with a lot of contract cancellation and such. How can I hedge such tariff risk from the orange man? (Obviously, the alternative is that I wish we could have elected a more competent leader, but at least 75 million American disagreed with me).
[–] boxed 5 days ago
What happens when the people with pitch forks come for your derivatives and call it gambling? They did during the 2008 financial crisis. It sounded pretty much exactly like your take here, one abstraction jump away.
Then after they've come for your derivatives, they come for your banks. Because what is a bank except skimming off the top of the company doing the real business?
Then they come for your company. Because what is a companies except skimming off the top of the workers doing the real business?
And then you're standing in that bread queue wondering how it happened, even if it was all 100% predictable.
[–] mrbombastic 4 days ago
[–] boxed 4 days ago
Also notice that all those things I gave as examples actually happened. Multiple times.
[–] dozerly 5 days ago