PPX: New Year's Payouts, Part One

PPX traders, hope everyone had a great holiday! We're happy to announce the payouts of the following stocks that coincided with the end of 2007:

• ERADIO: The Copyright Royalty Board's decision was not successfully challenged. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• H5N1: There were no confirmed cases of bird flu in North America. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• OLEDTV: Sony's new OLED TV did not go on sale in the U.S. in '07—currently it is only available in Japan. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• HURICAN: Of the two major hurricanes this year (Felix and Dennis), neither made landfall in the U.S. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• SOLSTRM: No major blackouts due to solar storms were recorded. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• DIETDRUG: The weight loss drug Alli has yet to face a major recall. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• SPACEX: The two unsuccessful tests of the company's Falcon booster program this year both failed to deliver a payload into orbit. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• ASTRD: While NASA did spot a near-earth asteroid (VK184) with potential for Earth impact late in the year, its Torino rating of 1 (out of 10) indicates an extremely low probability of impact. Thus it was not deemed dangerous enough for consideration. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• MSYAHOO: Although speculation remains, Microsoft did not merge with or acquire Yahoo in 2007. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• NBCITU: No other major network joined NBC in removing their content from the iTunes Store. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• PLTCBAN: Chicago, Los Angeles or New York did not join San Francisco is moving to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• DRMRIP: Sadly, EMI's move away from DRM earlier this year did not signal a full industry-wide trend, as Sony BMG remained the last of the four major labels to offer no DRM-free tracks for download anywhere. No company has removed their DRM schemes entirely. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• ZUNFON: Microsoft did not announce a Zune-based media phone to challenge the iPhone before the close of the year. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• ICLONE: The Meizu miniOne/M8, the most notorious of the planned iPhone knock-offs, has not yet been released. PAYOUT: POP$0/share
• SHUTL: Recent delays ensured that the planned fourth Shuttle missions to the ISS would not become a reality this year. PAYOUT: POP0$/share

Whew. So in summary - a whole lot of closings, and a whole lot of zero-dollar payouts. Not to say that 2007 wasn't an exciting year (other end-of-year stocks with conditions already met have been closed), but there were a lot of possibilities that didn't make it to reality.

A handful of other New Year's closings remain halted with no payout yet as we wait for verification data to come in. These include GOOGL, WIISALES, APPLEPC, HDVSBLU, IPSALES and MADDEN. Stay tuned —we'll pay them out as soon as confirmation data rolls in.  —PPXAdmin