The anz economic report actually recommended this site as a good guide to what the markets think of the war - unbeleivable, what will they think of next? Bet on whether sadamm will lose power by Mar, April, May or Jun.
go to Tradesports.com.
from ANZ; "Keeping track of the news on the war is a never-ending process. Reports from CNN, the BBC, Al Jazeera and the many other news networks fill the press, TV and related internet sites with reports from the field in real time. It is nigh on an impossible task to filter the partial news information filtering through the media and coming to a judgment as to what it means in net to terms as to how the war is progressing.
We prefer to rely on the financial markets' net assessments as more reliable. The price of bonds and equities could be two such proxies, but they also reflect many other influences. The price of oil is another direct measure of how the market might be pricing for regime change, but here again, the oil prices could also be changing from other supply- and demand-side influences. For example, other changes in world supply (eg Venezuela recently and Nigeria currently), changes in demand such as from an expanding world economy and from exceptional seasonal conditions can all impact on oil prices without any necessary shift in the likely duration of the conflict.
Watch Saddam futures
A direct measure of the war's duration is the so-called Saddam.Iraq futures prices quoted on Tradesports.com. This site offers contracts for those wishing to speculate on the probability of Saddam Hussein remaining President of Iraq at specified dates. These dates are currently the end of March, April, May, and June 2003. It seems reasonable that this is as good a measure of calibrating in real time how the market is pricing for a regime change in Iraq through time.
