Have US ground troops entered Iran? Last weekend, Bloomberg Weekend had a great story by Christopher Beam about how linguists are annoyed at Kalshi. Kalshi is a prediction market where you can bet on sports and various other events, including “mentions markets,” where a contract pays $1 if Jerome Powell says a certain word at a press conference or whatever, and $0 if he doesn’t. But what are the b...
Have US ground troops entered Iran? Last weekend, Bloomberg Weekend had a great story by Christopher Beam about how linguists are annoyed at Kalshi. Kalshi is a prediction market where you can bet on sports and various other events, including “mentions markets,” where a contract pays $1 if Jerome Powell says a certain word at a press conference or whatever, and $0 if he doesn’t. But what are the boundaries of a word? Are singular and plural nouns the same word? Past and present tense verbs? Participles? Etc., all these boring disputes. Kalshi has some rules to resolve these questions, and linguists have criticisms: Karlos Arregi, a linguistics professor at the University of Chicago, says they appear to be arbitrary rather than based on a particular theory or philosophy of language. “This looks like the kind of rules you’d have in a game like Scrabble,” he says. “It’s obvious to me these rules were not done by a linguist.” Rivka Levitan, a professor of computer science and linguistics at Brooklyn College CUNY, describes them as “more legalistic than linguistic.” A good set of rules, she suggests, ought to prioritize logical consistency. Instead, Kalshi’s rules seem to draw lines for no clear reason. They allow for certain types of inflections (such as -s for plural) but not others (such as -ed, -ing, -er, or -est). If the “strike” word — that is, the one listed on the mention market — is “veteran,” then “veterans” counts. But if the strike word is “veterans,” then “veteran” doesn’t count. This is unambiguous, but it’s also illogical. Similarly random-seeming are rules that allow deviations from the strike word when it comes to meaning but not form: If traders bet on a football announcer mentioning “wind,” for instance, their bet still hits for “the clock winds down.” But if the strike word is “run,” then “ran” or “running” doesn’t count. Arguably what Kalshi needs is not a team of linguists but a team of philosophers: It offers a huge variety of contracts that pay of...
SimoneN/iStock via Getty Images Ivanhoe Mines ( IVPAF ) was downgraded Monday by RBC Capital to Sector Perform from Outperform with a C$15 price target, lowered from C$19, following the company's updated Kamoa-Kakula mine plan which pushes out the recovery to full production to 2028. RBC's Sam Crittenden said he continues to see long-term value, and Kamoa-Kakula remains an outlier mine globally wi...
SimoneN/iStock via Getty Images Ivanhoe Mines ( IVPAF ) was downgraded Monday by RBC Capital to Sector Perform from Outperform with a C$15 price target, lowered from C$19, following the company's updated Kamoa-Kakula mine plan which pushes out the recovery to full production to 2028. RBC's Sam Crittenden said he continues to see long-term value, and Kamoa-Kakula remains an outlier mine globally with the combination of scale and high grades; while new guidance likely is conservative, the analyst believes investor sentiment could remain subdued until the mine gets closer to reaching full production levels. Revised guidance of 290K-330K metric tons in 2026 from 380K-420K tons originally reflects a longer mine development path to access ore in the Kakula mine past the area that was impacted by the seismic event last May, and reserve tonnage and grades also came down due to the need for wider pillars and lower extraction ratios. Crittenden thinks Ivanhoe Mines ( IVPAF ) has the potential to realize significant value as output at Kamoa-Kakula ramps up and the company advances its planned expansions to turn the project into one of the world's largest high-grade and low-cost copper mines; the recent seismic event is a big setback, but he believes the company can return production close to prior levels by 2028. More on Ivanhoe Mines Ivanhoe Mines: Patience Required As Kakula Is Rebuilt Ivanhoe Mines' Platreef Is Live: Meet The Real Winners Ivanhoe Mines Discusses Kamoa-Kakula Technical Report and Mineral Resource Update - Slideshow