Pool Rules - Newsmaker Pool Classic

CONTEST DATES

This contest shall run from XXXXX to XXXXXX inclusive. All entries must be received by 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time on XXXXXXXXX.

 

OBJECT OF THE CONTEST

The object of the contest is to achieve the highest total number of points. Points are accumulated through choosing newsmakers, some from a list, and some from the clear blue sky. Each mention of a newsmaker in Saturday news sections of the Globe and Mail constitutes a point.

 

APPLICABLE SECTIONS OF THE NEWSPAPER

For clarification, the newsmaker must be mentioned in the body of the story, and not the headline, byline or summaries. Applicable newspaper stories include stories in the Globe and Mail “A” sections and NEW: in columns or editorials published in the A section or the Opinion section in the seven successive Saturdays in question: [Dates of Saturdays to be inserted once contest starts]. This does not include articles in the Sports section, the Arts section, the Travel section, advertisements, obituaries, letters to the editors, Facts and Arguments page, or other material deemed by the pool administrator not to be in the news section or opinion/editorial columns. In the event that there is no Globe and Mail published on one of these days, the edition following it will be used, most likely the Monday paper. The specific paper that is to be used for scoring purposes will be the edition of the Globe and Mail that the pool administrator buys or steals on the way to breakfast each Saturday morning.

 

SCORING

Each mention of a newsmaker’s name will qualify as a mention for the purposes of this contest. Note that this does not include a mention of the newsmaker’s title, or nicknames for that matter. Thus, “Justin Trudeau”, “Justin”, “Trudeau” or  “Mr. Trudeau” appearing in the body of a story would score a point for a player who had chosen Mr. Trudeau as part of the pool, as would “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau”. However, “The Prime Minister” or “le Dauphin”, for example, would not constitute a mention (Exception: The Pope, members of the Royal family, or members of the band Slipknot).

 

FURTHER CLARIFICATION ON SCORING

If a political institution named after a newsmaker is mentioned using the newsmaker’s name (for example “The Biden Administration” or “The Trump Regime”) it shall count as a mention of the newsmaker. If a married couple is mentioned, both spouses will receive one mention (i.e. “The Harrises” or “Mr. and Mrs. Harris” would equal one point apiece for both Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff)

 

ASSEMBLING A TEAM

To assemble your team, choose from the lists specified in the pool groupings; one from each of the A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H groupings. With respect to the wildcard spots, a player may choose any two persons not previously listed in one of the pool groups. For clarification, these are to be persons (singular), not groups of people or organizations. Or inanimate objects, or economic phenomena, or fictitious characters (disputes as to fictional status to be adjudicated by the pool administrator) or abstract concepts, or similar ephemera. Choosing deceased people, however, is fine and dandy in my book. Exceptions: You may not choose journalists working for the Globe and Mail, or yourself. Or me. I have my reasons. These wildcard slots are valid at the discretion of the pool administrator.

Note: if a contestant accidentally, unintentionally or purposefully enters a member of a pool grouping as his/her wildcard for a week, that contestant shall receive no points for that wildcard slot that week. So make sure your wildcard selections are valid!

 

CHANGING YOUR TEAM

At any time, you may change any or all members of your team simply by accessing the pool database, clicking on “modify” and making the appropriate changes. A list of the teams for purposes of scoring will be downloaded from the database by the pool administrator each week at 12:01 AM Eastern Standard Time Friday morning. This list will be used to determine scoring for that week. This should then be considered the deadline for making changes to your team for the following Saturday. NOTE: In order to preserve some strategic element to the choosing your team, there will be a “blackout” period of approximately 48 hours each week right before the deadline when you will only be able to view your own team. This blackout period will take effect each week from Tuesday evening until each week’s deadline Friday morning at 12:01AM. Outside of this period, you may view the entire database, including all competitors’ teams, but during the blackout period, you may only view your own.

 

SCORES POSTED

At or before 1:00PM Eastern Standard Time each Monday (but usually by Saturday afternoon), the administrator will post updated pool scores on the main page. Final standings will be posted on or about the 15 or 16 of December. So you don’t even have to count your score unless you really want to. How easy can this get?

 

ENTRY LIMITATIONS

One entry per person or e-mail address, thanks. The pool administrator reserves the right to decline any contest entries, or to terminate participation in the contest at any time, for any reason. The contest administrator may also set limits on the total number of contestants, in which case, entries will be accepted on a “first come, first served” basis.

 

Pool Rules and Tutorial - Newsmaker Pool Futures Market

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Pool Rules

1. The Newsmaker Pool Futures Market (NPFM) is a simulation of a futures market trading in stocks based on occurrences primarily in the Canadian political arena.

2. The NPFM does not involve the trading of actual cash or assets, but rather is a simulation of the same, with the only exchanges occuring via fake currency (Natishcobucks or $N) that have no value. No prizes will be awarded to participants in the NPFM, and the NPFM does not condone or allow for the trading of actual assets through the contest or as a result of the contest. So, to sum up - Fake cash, no actual trading, nothing involved of real value. Are we clear on this?

 

3. The object of the NPFM contest (the contest) is to attain the higest possible value of a portfolio of stocks, as measured in Natishcobucks. At the end of the contest, the player who has accumulated the highest-value combination of cash and stocks will be declared the winner of the contest.

 

4. The current version of the NPFM will run from March 24, 2025 to 12:01 AM EST on the day of the 2025 Canadian Federal Election. The closing date of the contest will be subject to change by the pool administrator.

 

5. Each participant, upon registration in the NPFM, will receive $N100,000 in cash to inaugurate his or her portfolio. The participant may then use this cash to trade in stocks that are issued by the NPFM. Negative cash balances do not impair the ability of users to purchase stock.

6. At the pool administrator's discretion, and informed by the liquidation conditions of a particular stock, a NPFM stock may be declared liquidated. Upon liquidation, trading in a stock will be frozen, and a value of the stock will be declared.

 

7. All standing offers to bid for a particular stock will be ranked according to price (highest price for purchase, lowest price for sales), and then by date received (earliest first). All purchase and sale of stocks must be done by accepting the ranking standing offer for the stock. Once an offer has been exhausted (all volume has been sold or bought, or the bid is withdrawn), then the next ranking bid becomes the ranking standing offer.

 

8. Modifications to transactions, offers, holdings or stocks can be made by the pool administrator at the pool administrator's discretion.

 

9. For greater clarity, all references to the *2025 Canadian General Election*, *2025 election* and whatnot refer to the Canadian federal election that will be occurring from March 2025 to May 2025.

 

10. More rules as I think of 'em. Check back often.

 

Tutorial - The Politics of Trading

Viewing Stocks  The details of a particular stock  Buying and selling stocks  Getting to know your portfolio  Final Standings

 

Basically, all you need to know about this contest is contained in the old business axiom:

 

"Buy Low, Sell High"

 

and its corrollary,

"Sell High, Buy Low"\

 

If you remember those two things, which is really only one thing, you'll do fine. The rest of this section is pretty much hot waxed garbage anyways.

Without going into too much detail (you can find a better, more comprehensive, and substantially more accurate treatment here, the concept of a futures market came about as a way to remove risk from the producer of a commodity (who, as in the case of a small farmer, was often not well equipped to handle generalized risk), to someone else, who would not only be able to better handle risk, but might be able to make a profit off of managing the risk as well. These people were - you guessed it - largely bankers. Now you know pretty much all you need to know about the economic superstructure of agriculture as well. 

Anyways, the basic instrument of the futures market - the futures contract (a single purchase unit of which is called a share on this site, groupings of which are referred to as stocks states that the owner of a contract has an obligation to fulfill the terms of that contract at a certain date in the future. In the case of agricultural futures market, this usually means that the owner of the contract needs to come up with 100 pounds of pork bellies on the liquidation date of the contract. We thought about trying that here, but changed our minds at pretty much the last possible minute. (We like bacon a <u>lot</u>) In the case of the Newsmaker Pool Futures Market (NPFM), the terms and date are specified on the contract; but the future date we're talking about in this instance is the day after the 2025 Canadian feseral general election, and the owner of the contact needs to pony up cash on the barrelhead as measured in our fake currency of choice, Natischobucks (short form of which is $N).

A couple of words on when to buy and sell. Let's take a look at a couple of sample stocks from one of the previous versions of the futures market to illustrate.

 

Here is a stock based on the number of seats the Conservatives will win in the 2004 general election. As you will note, the final (liquidated) value 
of the stock will be based on how many seats the Tories win, on a 1 seat=$1 basis. So if the Tories win 100 seats, the stock will be worth N$100. 

So, in the above instance, the stock is trading at 80 Natishcobucks. That means the "market" thinks the Tories will win 80 seats. You think that's too pessimistic, and that the Conservatives will cruise in juggernaut-like fashion to a sweeping 300-seat majority? Well, you should buy up the stock so that you can make a mint when the stock is liquidated at the higher price! Or, do you think that N$80 is far too optimistic, and that the Conservatives will be reduced to a handful of seats a la 1993? Well, then you should short sell the stock (on this site, we use the terms sell and short sell interchangeably), get a fistful of cash now, and make out like a bandit when the stock is liquidated and you buy back the shares at pennies on the dollar. 

Anyways, the basic instrument of the futures market - the futures contract (a single purchase unit of which is called a share on this site, groupings of which are referred to as stocks states that the owner of a contract has an obligation to fulfill the terms of that contract at a certain date in the future. In the case of agricultural futures market, this usually means that the owner of the contract needs to come up with 100 pounds of pork bellies on the liquidation date of the contract. We thought about trying that here, but changed our minds at pretty much the last possible minute. (We like bacon a <u>lot</u>) In the case of the Natishco Political Futures Market (NPFM), the terms and date are specified on the contract; but the future date we're talking about in this instance is the day after the 2025 Canadian feseral general election, and the owner of the contact needs to pony up cash on the barrelhead as measured in our fake currency of choice, Natischobucks (short form of which is $N).

This is the real beauty of the Natishco futures market - you can sell stuff YOU DON'T EVEN OWN!!! You will find over the course of the contest that the opportunity to make profits is roughly the same via purchase and via short selling - hence a balanced portfolio should include healthy investments in both purchases <b>and</b> short sales.

Let's take another example, from a slightly different type of stock.

At Natishco (and I'm pretty sure nowhere else), we call this kind of stock a "binary" stock. That's because there are essentially two liquidation conditions - true or false. In the "true" case, the stock is worth full value (in this instance, 100 Natishcobucks), and in the "false" case, the stock is worth zero (or 0 Natishcobucks). (As in the above case, there is sometimes provided a third possible liquidation value, usually for <i>deus ex machina</i> cases where the result doesn't quite fit the true or false cases. You can usually safely ignore these) In the case above, the stock is based on whether New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is appointed as the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee. The stock is currently trading at N$25. A good way to think about binary stocks is in terms of percentages. 

That is to say, the "market" thinks that there's about a 25% chance that Richardson will be appointed the Democratic VP nominee. The corrollary of this is that the market thinks that there's a 75% chance that Richardson will NOT be appointed in favour of someone else. 

 

So how do you approach purchasing this stock? If you think that Richardson having a 25% chance of being appointed is way too low and that he's almost a lock for VP, you should buy the stock at $N25, as the stock will rise, and you will be able to sell back the stock at liquidation for N$100 a share. But if you think that the chance of him being appointed is lower than 25% (or the chance of someone else being appointed higher than 75%), then you should short sell the stock, pick up N$25 a share right now, and buy back the stock at liquidation when it is priced at N$0 (thus not having to spend any money whatsoever). 

 

OK, with the basics of trading out of the way, let's take a look around the site and see just exactly how it is you go about buying and selling stuff. Let's start by looking at the summary table for all stocks.

Viewing all stocks at a glance

 

Above is a screenshot of the table indicating what stocks are available for trading. You can see this information by clicking on the "View stocks" link at the left of your screen. The tables provided give you a quick and concise overview of the stocks being traded - not a bad place to scan to start wondering whether some trading is in order.

 

Briefly, you are presented with the ticker symbol for the stock (more on that in a second), the full title of the stock, whether the stock is open or closed for tradinng, and the current price of the stock - this represents the last price at which a transaction was made, and will change often. Keep an eye on this column for potential bargains.

 

So how do you approach purchasing this stock? If you think that Richardson having a 25% chance of being appointed is way too low and that he's almost a lock for VP, you should buy the stock at $N25, as the stock will rise, and you will be able to sell back the stock at liquidation for N$100 a share. But if you think that the chance of him being appointed is lower than 25% (or the chance of someone else being appointed higher than 75%), then you should short sell the stock, pick up N$25 a share right now, and buy back the stock at liquidation when it is priced at N$0 (thus not having to spend any money whatsoever). 

 

OK, with the basics of trading out of the way, let's take a look around the site and see just exactly how it is you go about buying and selling stuff. Let's start by looking at the summary table for all stocks.

Details of a stock

If you want to look at a stock in greater detail, click on the stock's ticker symbol.

You'll be brought to the "View a Stock" page, which presents you with a chunk of information. Let's break it down into the core pieces.

 

1. The stock ticker symbol. This is the ten-character symbol that identifies the stock to the computer. It's a lovely and incomprehensible mess of letters and numbers. Breaking it down, the first two characters indicate the series of the stock - for example, 4E indicates that the stock is issued as part of the 2004 General Election version of the NPFM, while 4B indicates that the stock is issued as part of the 2004 Beta test for this contest. 

 

The following eight characters describe, as best as one can with any eight letters or numbers, the stock being traded. The first three or four characters may refer to a particular subset - for example HOC is used in the 2004 General Election series (4E) to indicate that this stock refers to whether certain members get elected to the House of Commons; i.e. 4EHOC_ANDR trades on David Anderson's election in Victoria in 2004, while 4EHOC_BRIS trades on Scott Brison's election in Kings-Hants. Likewise SEAT refers to stocks traded on the basis of House seats won by the parties in the 2004 election.  None of this is really all that important. I'm not sure why it merited two paragraphs. I think my wife probably laced my coffee.

 

2. The Stock title. A short description of the stock.

3. Current price of the stock. As previously noted, this is the last price at which the stock in question was traded, current as of when you last loaded this page. 

4. Stock description. If clarification is needed, a longer description of the stock than is provided in the stock title.

5. Liquidation conditions. Here we come to our first really interesting piece of information. At some point, the stock is going to have to stop being traded and be fully redeemed. We refer to this process here, almost certainly incorrectly, as <b>liquidation</b> of the stock. When a stock is liquidated, a number of things happen:

• Trading is halted in the stock
• A new price is set as per the liquidation conditions of the stock
• All contestants who have bought shares in the stock are forced to "sell" all their shares back to the bank at the new price, so that they have an effective ownership level of zero shares. Similarly:

• All contestants who have short sold shares in the stock are forced to "buy back" shares from the bank at the new price, so that they have an effective ownership level of zero shares.

Let's take an example of how this would work. Say that, hypothetically, May 10, 2004 rolls around, and Prime Minister Martin has not called an election. The liquidated stock value, as per the liquidation conditions listed, is zero Natishcobucks (or N$0 in shorthand. Now, we have two contestants who hold shares in very different ways:

• Contestant 1 - John G. Hnatyshyn (no relation) - John reads the Globe and Mail diligently and concluded that the Prime Minister was absolutely, positively and logically going to call the election on or before May 9th. In the previous days, John bought 2,000 shares of 4BWRITD509 at a price of N$80, spending a total of N$160,000 from his cash account. Now that the stock is liquidated, he has to sell back all the shares at a price of N$0, giving him total revenues of, er, zero. John has lost N$160,000.
• Contestant 2 - Governor General Adrienne Clarkson - Prior to May 9th, Adrienne runs into a contact of hers who offers her reasonable assurance that the election won't be called until after May 10th. Adrienne then offers to sell 2,000 shares of 4BWRITD509 at a price of N$80. Some sucker comes along and agrees to the transaction, and Adrienne receives N$160,000 in payment for short selling the shares. Nice. Now May 10th comes along, and the stock is liquidated. Adrienne is "forced" to buy back the 2,000 shares that she short sold from the bank at a cost of, um, let's see... 2,000 shares times zero dollars... carry the three... zero dollars. Thus she has just made a cool N$160,000.

6. Maximum and minimum amounts of the stock that you can hold. I'm certainly willing to discuss the whole concept of limiting purchases of stock on the discussion board. As a temporary measure, it seemed a good idea to put limits on the number of stocks that a particular player could buy or sell. Purchases and sales are exclusive of one another, so think of the example listed above as a continuum - you can own as much as 5,000 shares of the stock in question, or as little as -5000 shares (i.e. you can short sell up to 5000 shares). Note that the limit applies to both stock you own and stock you offer to own. Hence, if you own 3,000 shares of the above-referenced stock, and have outstanding offers to purchase 2,000 shares, you have reached the functional limit for the stock. (If someone came along and took you up on your purchase offer, you would reach the ceiling; hence you would be at the limit).

7. Maximum and minimum prices of the stock. Usually, this breaks down according to liquidation conditions. If the stock is what we refer to as a "binary stock" (i.e. there are only two possible liquidation conditions - true or false), then the high and low end of the trading zone will be defined by this - the "yes" answer will be valued at 100, and the "no" answer will be valued at zero. Other stocks, like the Party Seat totals, will have different liquidation conditions; each party theoretically has 308 discrete liquidation conditions, one for each additional seat above zero the party would win (well, except the BQ, and if I see anybody bidding into the 100s on the BQ stock, good luck and God speed).

8. This just indicates whether the stock is open for trading or not. Stocks could be closed for trading for a number of reasons, for example in the case of stock liquidation (where the pool administrator would freeze the stock and set the liquidation price), or database maintainance. I'm sure there may be other reasons to close trading, but none pop immediately to mind.

9. This is just a little link you can click on to immediately go down to the trading forms.

 

Buying and Selling stocks

There are two ways to buy or sell stocks. You can accept the best standing offer to purchase or sell a given stock, or you can make your own offer. Let's take each of these in turn.

On each stock's page, along with the listing of stock conditions, there is a listing of the top three offers to purchase the stock, and top three offers to sell the stock (or up to three if there are less than three offers). 

 

Buying or selling a stock immediately

 

If you want to buy or sell a stock immediately, you must take the ranking offer. Stocks are ranked first by price, and then by the earliest offer at that price point. So the ranking purchase offer is the highest price offer on record, and then, the earliest offer at that price. Similarly, the ranking sell offer is the lowest price offer on record, and then, the earliest offer at that price.

 

In the above graphic, the key pieces of information are 1. The price being offered, 2. The volume being offered, and 3. The date and time of the offer. If you think that buying or selling to the ranking bid would be a good deal, you should click on the link (numbered #4 in the picture above) which corresponds to an immediate purchase or an immediate sale. 

 

From there, you'll be taken to a page where you are presented with the total volume of stocks you are allowed to buy or sell (based on your current holdings of the stock, the maximum or minimum limits of the stock that you can hold, and any oustanding offers to purchase or sell the stock that you have). You can then enter into the form the number of stocks that you want to buy or sell. Then click on the button to finalize the transaction. Once this transaction is made, ALL SALES ARE FINAL. No refunds, baby.

 

Making your own offer to buy or sell a stock

 

Maybe you don't think that the prices offered are good enough to cause you to want to buy or sell immediately  - or maybe you think you can make a better bid! If that's the case (or if it's early in the game and there are no standing offers) you will want to make your own offer to purchase or sell a stock. 

Finally, on the view portfolio page, you can see all of your transactions to date. The two tables list the ticker, price and quantity of shares sold, and whether it was you (by buying or selling someone's offer immediately) or someone else (who took you up on your own offer) that "closed" the transaction.

 

Final standings and prizes

 

The winner of the Newsmaker Pool Futures Market is the person/fund with the highest liquidated value at the end of the contest (day after election). In order to ensure some degree of arbitrage neutrality, we will freeze trading at midnight (12:00 AM EST) of the final day of the contest, which will be election day. 

 

At this point we have no prizes available for winners, though this may change based depending on whether the pool administrator cleans out his basement, receives a surprise inheritance or some other deus ex machina event.

 

That's pretty much it for the tutorial. If you have any other questions, post them to the discussion board. 

 

Happy trading!