Lights, Camera, Trade

Are you willing to risk your bets on Tom Cruise's next talk-show antic? Do you think the movie Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix will be as successful as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Will Angelina Jolie's upcoming delivery make her less marketable?

Thanks to the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), America's obsession with Hollywood has now become a proxy for Wall Street. Owned by Cantor Fitzgerald, the exchange gives aspiring moguls and cinema fans alike the opportunity to trade so-called star bonds, movie options and movie stocks. It also gives film investors a look at your tastes: in other words, it does for Hollywood what Intrade.com has done for elections and other events.

While the Hollywood Stock Exchange has somewhat of a silly pretense, it can mean windfalls for media investors. The HSX claims to have a good proxy of upcoming Hollywood events -- it did pick seven of the eight main Oscar winners this year -- and analysts and investors take it seriously. With a window into the next blockbuster hit, have investors found a way to make the volatile movie business a little less of a crapshoot? ...