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Compare markets
Put up to four markets on the same ruler. The shapes do most of the explaining.
| Radio spectrum | Airport slots | |
|---|---|---|
| Exit difficulty | 5 | 5 |
| Volatility | 2 | 3 |
| Leverage | 3 | 2 |
| Carry cost | 3 | 3 |
| Fraud risk | 1 | 1 |
| Protection gap | 3 | 4 |
| Barrier to entry | 5 | 5 |
| Expertise needed | 5 | 5 |
| Difficulty | 59 Tough | 63 Extreme |
| In a sentence | Licences to transmit on particular frequencies — a finite natural resource, auctioned by the state for billions, and the reason your phone works. | Permission to use a runway at a given time on a given day — worth tens of millions of pounds at Heathrow, and not, technically, owned by anyone. |
| Unit | Megahertz of bandwidth, by geography and duration | A slot pair: one arrival and one departure |
| Smallest realistic trade | Auction lots; secondary trades between operators | A single slot pair |
| Settlement | Licence award or transfer approved by the regulator | Transfer approved and recorded by the slot coordinator |
The fingerprint measures how demanding a market is to take part in. It is not a rating or a recommendation.