Recap

Predictions: 2006 & Beyond

Intuitive Sean David Morton of the Delphi Associates returned to check in on his past predictions and give an update for the year ahead and beyond. Here are some highlights of his forecast:

The flu pandemic will reach its peak in 2006 and Asia will be particularly hard hit with deaths.

Gold and precious metals will continue to rise in value. Gold will hit 725 by July-Aug. 0f 2006.

Good stock picks for right now: Apple Computer, Pixar, Nuclear Solutions, Azure Dynamics and Magna Entertainment.

The housing market/mortgage bubble will pop sometime within the next six months.

A "savagely cold" winter for the Midwest and East Coast will cause energy costs to rise again, with the price of an oil barrel reaching $75-80 by January.

The 2008 presidential election will be between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. (He declined to predict a winner at this juncture.)

Dick Cheney will resign due to "health issues."

The San Francisco region will have three serious quakes in 2006. The precursor will be a 6.5 quake in central California occurring in Feb.-March. This will be followed by quakes centered near Hollister, Vallejo/Marin and the East Bay between April and October.

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Betting on the Future

A rise in online prediction markets is allowing people to bet on far more than just sports outcomes, and it turns out that these markets have a penchant for accuracy. For instance, the Iowa Electronic Markets is said to routinely outperform polls in the case of national elections.

Other markets such as the Hollywood Stock Exchange allow participants to speculate on how well various entertainment endeavors will perform. "The driving force behind prediction markets," writes Bill Saporito in a recent Time Magazine article is "information aggregation," which can benefit from outsider perspectives, unbiased views, and insider tips.