It will go down as one of the most short-lived trading
venues ever. It had been in development for months, and its
owners claim to have spent $600,000 setting it up. Yet within
24 hours of becoming public knowledge it was killed off.
Goodbye, and good riddance, to the Policy Analysis Market (PAM).
The brainchild of the Defense Research Projects agency (Darpa), an
arm of the US Department of Defense, it aimed to trade futures
contracts to enable bets on certain events taking place in the
Middle East. Examples included...
