Another completely non-finance forum I use has an annual competition set up on investopedia, some guys actually do very, very well on it (winner got 196% last year if I recall). So why doesn’t AF have one of these going? Start date would have been best on Jan. 1st obviously, but it’s not too late to get one going!
Plus for all of those who want a paper portfolio, this could be a good way to get it going. But only really worth it if there’s real interest/people have the time.
I’ve actually thought about trying to do something like this and came up with something that I think would be simple, short term, and fun.
Basically you’d setup brackets and pit two posters against each other during the trading day. Rules are simple, each person is randomly assigned opposing positions on the SP at the morning’s open (long/short). They then get one trade to close their position. They can close at any point during the day, with the latest MOC. Winner is whoever makes the most (or loses the least). You could have a few rounds of this.
…figured it’d be a good way to see how people trade the same risk, it’s short term so people with ADD can play, and you don’t have to reveal your super duper proprietary guaranteed to triple stocks.
I don’t really like paper competitions because of the asymmetric nature of it. I mean, what’s the difference between losing a fictious million or a fictious billion? If I got things wrong, I’m one of the losers anyway. If I get 15% with very low volatility, I’ll probably be losing anyway.
So the incentives are to take the maximum possible risk and concentrating it. Take a good idea with a huge upside and go 100% long call options on that. If your idea is right, you may win. If it sucks, you’ll lose like you probably would anyway, statistically.
That makes sense. The other forum I mentioned actually has decent prizes for the winners (this year got a 55" tv) so there is definately motivation to stick with it considering its free to enter.
It might be fun, but my guess is that it would be a pain to organize. It might be intereststing if members could have a buy/sell history or trade log that they are considering, and one can keep track of it over time and let the user decide whether they want to make it public or not.
It sounds like a lot of work to set up though, and while it’s certainly fun, it’s not clear how much value that can add to the website owner in compensation for all the work it implies.
Maybe someone here wants to organize a contest on think-or-swim or whatever other site lets people do this?
I’ve setup an investing competition that will run through 2013. First prize is a $250 Amazon gift card, second prize is a $100 Amazon gift card and third prize is a $50 Amazon gift card. Every member starts with $1,000,000 of cash. You must use your AnalystForum username to register for the competition. Here are the rules of the AnalystForum Cup 2013:
INITIAL CASH BALANCE: $1,000,000
SHORTING: YES
DAY TRADING: YES
MINIMUM STOCK PRICE FOR BUYING: $1.00
MINIMUM STOCK PRICE FOR SHORTING: $5.00
TRADES ALLOWED: 1000
POSITION LIMITS ON SECURITY: 25%
LEAGUE ENDS ON : DECEMBER 31, 2013
Here is the link and password you will need to access the competition:
Let me get this straight. I may have missed something. You day trade for a WHOLE YEAR with FAKE money and the winner gets a $250 gift card…is it just me or does this seem like an unproductive use of time…