Traders see 95 percent chance of 500 U.S. flu cases
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Traders are betting there is a 95 percent chance the number of confirmed U.S. cases of a new strain of flu will reach 500 before the end of June, online market InTrade said on Thursday.
That's up from 50 percent on Tuesday and comes as the World Health Organization warned the world was on the brink of a global outbreak of the new strain of influenza A. Twelve countries have reported cases.
U.S. officials have reported 109 confirmed swine flu infections and the only death recorded outside of Mexico.
InTrade accepts trades on the probability of events, such as the timing of an economic recovery, whether the United States or Israel will launch an airstrike on Iran, or whether a eurozone country will drop the single currency.
InTrade opened the swine flu betting market on Tuesday, the same day that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said it had confirmed a total of 64 human cases of swine flu across the country.
InTrade markets are priced from zero to 100, with zero meaning investors see no chance an event will occur and 100 meaning it already has happened.
The market opened at a 50 percent chance that at least 500 people in the United States would contract the virus by the end of the June, but over Wednesday rocketed to 90 percent as the World Health Organization raised its alert level to phase 5, the last step before a pandemic.
Bets on Hubbub, which unlike Intrade does not use real money, show there is a 89 percent chance the swine flu will be declared a global pandemic in 2009.
