Global Investing

Politicians are busy blaming betting in financial markets for the recent market turmoil, with Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of euro zone finance ministers, urging investors to stop playing a “casino game” with their shares this week.

But dare-devil operators in financial markets have shown no sign of halting their innovation in financial instruments, which are enabling investors to bet on everything from Academy Award winners to space travelling.

One of the most traded contracts on trading platform Intrade is the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election, due in just over a month.

The Barack Obama contract, based on the U.S. dollar, rose 1.5 points to 62.5, with 5,857 contracts traded on Tuesday. The level is just below a record high set in mid-July.

The John McCain contract fell half a point to 37.6, having hit an all-time high only a few weeks ago.

The present may be pretty bleak for investors, but that has not stopped one firm from looking decidedly at the future – privatised space travel. Fortis Investments reckons space tourism will one day become all the rage with travellers willing to fork out thousands upon thousands of dollars for the adventure.

In the latest issue of Fund Expert magazine, Fortis looks at the nascent industry and reckons that the price of a space trip – roughly $200,000 to begin with – should come down substantially as a result of competition. There is already some – including Virgin Galactic, which is aiming for launch by next year, and Rocketplane, which should go up the year after.  They will start modestly, just sticking their noses out of the atmosphere.

The new industry, however, eventually should mean a boom in new employment, requiring commercial astronauts, flight attendants, tour operators and so on. But the flight operators may also be licking their lips at the prospect of getting government military and scientific research contracts. Fortis – whose Brussels headquarters coincidently is located on Avenue de l’Astronomie — reckons that a NASA flight currently costs the U.S. government $1.3 billion a pop. So outsourcing would be attractive.