Diversification Opportunity

[REWahoo]

For those of you looking for an investment to diversify your portfolio, how about a futures contract...

Enron Trial Spawns Trading, Betting

By KRISTEN HAYS, AP Business WriterFri Feb 10, 4:16 PM ET

Long before Enron Corp. drowned in scandal, its former chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling trumpeted the company's savvy in creating trading markets beyond energy. Now it turns out they are the subjects of futures contracts that allow investors to wager on whether they will be convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges.

Intrade, a futures market based in Dublin, Ireland, creates trading vehicles based on everything from which film will win best picture at the Academy Awards to whether bird flu will be discovered in the United States before March 31. It recently added contracts on whether jurors will convict Lay of at least four charges and whether they will find Skilling guilty on at least 16 counts.

...On Friday, when court was not in session, the trading at Intrade showed a more than 60 percent chance that Lay would be convicted of at least four of the seven counts of fraud and conspiracy against him. For Skilling, trading showed about a 75 percent chance he would be convicted on more than half the 31 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors pending against him.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060210/..._trial_betting