Hubdub’s Hot Predictions this week, as decided by Hubdub users and staff, are selected based on their newsworthiness for the week. These stories are bound to be big news this week - and we have forecasts on how they’re likely to turn out.

Sports
The NBA championship’s are in two weeks, and with the playoff games coming to a end, one team is the front runner. The Cleveland Cavaliers have a 50% chance of winning the championships, while the LA Lakers have a 24%, the Orlando Magic have the lowest chance of winning at 20%.

Team to win the 2009 NBA Championship?

Science
Just one look at the Hubdub odds on where the Swine Flu pandemic alert level is going to go, and it’s easy to see no one truly knows what will happen. There’s a 35% chance the pandemic alert goes up to 6 and a 32% chance it goes down to 4 within 5 weeks.

Whats next for the Swine Flu alert level: 4 or 6?

Business
Oil has gone up to $60 a barrel, but will it continue to rise? Although there’s 39% odds the price rises above $65 a barrel, the highest odds are 47% for no change before July.

Oil- up or down? July Contract. Which comes first - $55 oil or $65 oil?

Entertainment
The MTV Movie Awards are in 6 days, and one of the most entertaining awards is sure to be ‘Best Kiss.’ This year Kristen Stewart & Robert Pattinson’s kiss in Twilight seems to be the no-brainer. Hubdubbers give the kiss a 71%  chance of being selected.

MTV Movie Awards: Best Kiss?

World
With North Korea’s announced nuclear test tensions are high on the Korean peninsula and throughout Asia. But will the test have any lasting repercussions on peace talks? For now it doesn’t look like it. Hubdub forecasts North Korean Nuclear disarmament talks beginning in 2009 are likely.

When will North Korean nuclear disarmament talks start again?

Uncategorized best kiss, business, Cleveland Cavaliers, diplomacy, gasoline, Kristen Stewart, la lakers, MTV movie awards, national basketball association, nba, nba playoffs, north korea, nuclear tests, oil, oil barrel prices, orlando magic, pandemic, Robert Pattinson, swine flu, twilight

Hubdub’s Hot Predictions this week, as decided by Hubdub users and staff, are selected based on their newsworthiness for the week. These stories are bound to be big news this week - and we have forecasts on how they’re likely to turn out.

Politics
Although Hubdub forecasts the Stimulus package will pass the Senate, exactly how much bi-partisan support it will have is still unclear. With a 45% chance Hubdub forecasts at least 2-3 Republicans vote to approve the package when it comes to a vote.

How many Republican Senators will vote to approve the current $800b + stimulus bill?

World
It seems a new wave of protesting is sweeping across the land, shoe throwing. First former President Bush and now Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. With so many leaders out there and just as many people angry at them, another country’s leader is bound to be ‘attacked.’ Currently Hubdub forecasts within a year it happens again.

Will there be a new incident of a shoe thrown at a country’s leader?

Business
Almost 600,000 American jobs were lost in January, raising unemployment levels to 7.6%. A sign many economists say points to a deepening crisis, with even worse months ahead. Sadly Hubdub has no good news yet, forecasting February sees unemployment rising to 8%.

What will the US unemployment rate be for February 2009?

Sports
In February Sports Illustrated releases their 2009 Swimsuit issue. Brooklyn Decker is the front runner for cover model with a 37% chance. If you’d like to drool over what you can’t ever have, click on the market for ‘images.’ I won’t lie these women are very, very beautiful and lets not kid ourselves, sex sells.

Who will be the cover model of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition 2009?

Science
Volcanic eruptions occur allot more often then some think. This February we may see the natural beauty of one from Mount Redoubt, located near Alaska’s largest city. Getting forecasts on exactly when she’ll blow her top, as you can tell by the graph isn’t easy though. For now according to Hubdub there’s only a 21% chance Mount Redoubt erupts before February 15th.

Will Mount Redoubt erupt before Feb. 15/09?

Trading percentages given are at time of posting and may not match up with markets after the fact due to Hubdub users forecasting on said markets.

Hubdub Top 5 alaska, barack obama, Brooklyn Decker, business, democrats, financial crisis, hubdub, mount redoubt, politics, republicans, senate, shoe, Sports Illustrated, stimulus, stimulus package, swimsuit issue, throw, unemployment, volcano, wen jiabao

Click here for the list of nominees.

If politics was difficult to call in 2008, then business was a disaster for most pundits. If just one of our pundits had informed his or her readers to hide their money under the mattress, then they would have easily scooped the prize. Unfortunately, it seems that many in the financial press view their job as selling stocks so the only way to predict is up.

Leading the charge, as ever, is Jim Cramer writing for New York Magazine. Goldman to $300 he breathlessly writes (it ended the year at $89), Google to $1,000 (oops, it ended at $308) and oil will surge to $125 as we are running out (as it ends the year below $50, the Saudis must have found some more obviously). However, Cramer didn’t get it all wrong as foresaw Chrysler failing and then getting a bailout from Congress and he also predicted that the New York Times would drop below $10.

Also managing to stumble on a few forecast cow pats were Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha. The Fool thought that Yahoo would finally start to get it right (put the dunce cap back on for that one) and Seeking Alpha thought Facebook would IPO (I guess that will happen just after they figure out how to make money). Seeking Alpha regains some credibility in predicting that Ford would sell Land Rover and Jaguar to Tata.

While the Fool and Seeking Alpha may have stumbled on the cow pats, Business Week dived into the dung heap. While they predicted a crash for Web 2.0 and crude oil going through $100 they also predicted that airlines would consolidate, a back lash against the green movement, Bloomberg to run for president, Clinton to get the Democrat nomination, McCain to win and Apple to have a resounding success with Apple TV. Potentially a home run of inaccurate predictions.

However, the winner of the business category predicted at least one banking bankruptcy in 2008, that the Dow Jones would drop to 11,500 by the summer (although he failed to predict the subsequent collapse), that the credit default swap market would blow up and called bullshit on the theory that emerging markets were decoupled from the US economy. Congratulations to Jon Markman of MSN Money for an impressive performance. An inscribed quaich is on its way to you now.

UPDATE: The Seeking Alpha article was actually from Investor Trip. Seeking Alpha just aggregated it.

Pundit Awards awards, business, predictions, pundits

As announced last week, News Pundits is running awards for the top pundits who made the most accurate 2008 predictions. For the remainder of this year we will be publishing a list of nominees for each category. If you want to nominate another pundit please do so by providing a link in the comments below.

The nominations so far for Business News Pundit 2008 are:

Business Week Staff - Business Week

James Cramer- New York Magazine

Rick Aristotle Munarriz - Motley Fool

Byron Wein - Bloomberg

Seeking Alpha

Small Cap Network

John Markman - MSN

Money Blue Book

UPDATE: The Seeking Alpha article is actually from Investor Trip. Seeking Alpha just aggregated it.

Pundit Awards awards, business, predictions, pundits