Hannah Montana tickets

Here's my daughter at her 4th birthday party (she's now 5), a big fan of "Hannah Montana." In the WSJ this morning there's a story on how computer bots have taken over Ticketmaster, and that the ticket prices for Hannah Montana's "The Best of Both Worlds" on the "secondary" market are pricier than the big name acts. Ticketmaster is now suing the software company that allows these "bots" to swarm their website and purchase the tickets. And this is a great lesson in markets and the inefficiencies that exist, and the simple way to beat the system.

Hannan Montana tickets are pricier because parents will do almost anything to make their kids happy. If they have floor seats for $63, and they can sell them for $400 will they? Most won't, as the smile on their kids face and the memories are worth more than that. So those tickets sell for $800. Ticket scalpers know that so they write software to steal the tickets before the parents can buy them. That's the market mechanism at work. Exploiting those without information or access to speed in trading, and then pretend they are a master of the universe.

How to you beat them? Join Hannah Montana's fan club, "Miley's World." For $29.95, your kid will get her Miley kicks. And then you can buy the presale tickets for $63, before they go on sale to the general public and fight the computer bots at Ticketmaster, with the code that the fan club gives you. And since you are a member of the fan club, you get the best seats in the house-floor seats in front of the stage. (Disney understands marketing better than anyone.)

It's the same with the market. There are ways to acquire those stocks when their isn't competition for them. When Wall Street is puking them up and giving them away, because they don't do their homework, or see past the next week. The only difference is you don't need to spend $29.95 to join the fan club, you just have to read this blog.