Patent ID: 7983976

Claim:
A method of conducting business comprising the steps of: establishing a computer-network based contract trading system electronically accessible by traders, said trading system including a plurality of trading accounts, each trader on the trading system being associated with at least one of the trading accounts; establishing, on said trading system, a plurality of separate contracts within contract bundles, each contract bundle paying off an aggregate fixed monetary sum at maturity, the aggregate fixed monetary sum at maturity known when the contract bundles are established, and wherein each contract bundle comprises at least two separate contracts; selling, over said trading system, at least one of the plurality of separate contracts within the contract bundles; accepting for resale over said trading system, the at least one of the plurality of separate contracts within the contract bundles; settling the at least one of the plurality of separate contracts against the trading account of the trader of said separate contract; assessing a transaction fee for at least one of said steps of selling, accepting for resale, or settling of the at least one of the plurality of separate contracts; wherein each of said separate contracts pays off a fixed sum or a zero sum depending on an outcome of a future event; wherein said future event has a recurring regular occurrence and wherein said method further comprises the steps of: establishing over said trading system, a plurality of contract bundles, each contract bundle comprising at least two separate contracts, at least one of said plurality of contract bundles having a time period from a sale thereof to an expiration thereof which partially overlaps the time period from a sale of another of said plurality of contract bundles until an expiration of said another of said plurality of contract bundles, said at least one of said plurality of contract bundles corresponding to a first periodic occurrence of said future event and said another of said plurality of contract bundles corresponding to a second periodic occurrence of said future event.