Stock Picking ("Beat Boho") Contest

[Coolius]

For whatever its worth, contests like this are not a proper representation of investing strategies.

As in some previous contests I have participated in, winners won because of strategies they would never, ever, have considered if real money was involved. Such as putting everything into one small unknown stock, etc.

I will leave my "portfolio" the way it is now, but will not longer monitor or do anything else with it. For fun, it's ok, but nothing of real practical value.

 

[ERD50]

Guys, give Boho a break!

He is honest by revealing his trade and the stock quote error. He could have kept mum and savored his "victory".

Absolutely good that he came clean on this.

But was anyone giving him a hard time about that? I think he was only getting a hard time for his claims of obvious superiority.

But as just mentioned, these sorts of contests are a funny thing, people will use any strategy to win, since there is no real monetary loss to that risk. But I would still find it interesting to see if boho and planman (or planman1 - in case you saw that post before it was deleted) could beat the market over ups and downs, that might take several years to see. But they should pull way ahead if they are that good (and they were doing OK, though that was really short term).

-ERD50

 

[easysurfer]

Remember when I started the contest thread, I said this should be a fun and educational experience?

Well, was fun while the contest lasted. Educational, but not like I thought. Educational in that to make sure to use a contest site that isn't buggy . My apologies to everyone for that.

True, what some are saying about in a contest, the strategies aren't what folks would do with real money. Plus, a one year contest compresses the time.

But, I'm in for a "Beat Boho II" contest if other folks are.

 

[easysurfer]

For whatever its worth, contests like this are not a proper representation of investing strategies.

As in some previous contests I have participated in, winners won because of strategies they would never, ever, have considered if real money was involved. Such as putting everything into one small unknown stock, etc.

I will leave my "portfolio" the way it is now, but will not longer monitor or do anything else with it. For fun, it's ok, but nothing of real practical value.

So, In an effort to redeem myself, I'm at the moment signed up at Investopdia looking at their stock market simulator as a better contest site. They have more controls for a contest to make things more real. For example, a diversification limit so a [-]gambler[/-] investor can't put all the eggs in one investment. Also, any timeframe allowed. Like 3 years or no end.

 

[Fermion]

Not saying anyone tried anything fishy, but I think that because of the buggy Simvest, we can't count on any of the numbers and just start over with the same opening balance for everyone at the new contest.

Fermion supports this idea! Take a mulligan!

 

[Fermion]

If we really want to make this interesting, we could play for reals.

Have everyone sign up for a new account with a brokerage that offers 90 days of free trades, then agree that we will scale our investments at 1:100 with something like $1000 at risk. Certainly not an amount that anyone on ER.org would have to eat cat food if they lost but enough that they probably would not buy $1000 of Apple 3/31 $200 call options.

 

[easysurfer]

If we really want to make this interesting, we could play for reals.

Have everyone sign up for a new account with a brokerage that offers 90 days of free trades, then agree that we will scale our investments at 1:100 with something like $1000 at risk. Certainly not an amount that anyone on ER.org would have to eat cat food if they lost but enough that they probably would not buy $1000 of Apple 3/31 $200 call options.

I'm sure any amount not virtual wouldn't jive here. But I know what you are saying. Put some skin in the game.

To be honest, I would decline anyhow, as you are talking to a guy who has never bought a lottery ticket besides the peer pressured office pools in the past .

 

[Fermion]

I'm sure any amount not virtual wouldn't jive here. But I know what you are saying. Put some skin in the game.

To be honest, I would decline anyhow, as you are talking to a guy who has never bought a lottery ticket besides the peer pressured office pools in the past .

But you just proved my point. The game is meaningless if it is not something you could consider in the real world. We might as well all engage in some sort of turn based online monopoly.

I, on the other hand, do have a real trading account and execute trades quite similar to what I have done in this game, although usually not with an immediate 15% drop . I have had my account be down 28% one month and up 160% the next month though. Those 12.5% coupon mining bonds I bought at 25% to 40% of par which dropped to 18% of par then were redeemed at 100%.

 

[NW-Bound]

If we really want to make this interesting, we could play for reals.

Have everyone sign up for a new account with a brokerage that offers 90 days of free trades, then agree that we will scale our investments at 1:100 with something like $1000 at risk. Certainly not an amount that anyone on ER.org would have to eat cat food if they lost but enough that they probably would not buy $1000 of Apple 3/31 $200 call options.

Nothing is real unless it has a 7-digit balance.

 

[Boho]

I think so too.

Here are some possible candidates....

Best Stock Trading Simulators of 2017 | Top Ten Reviews

Of course, there may be others that come to mind also.

I'm going to look through that list. Investopedia's simulator "does not currently offer a real-time trading environment with live prices. However for most users the 15 minute lag in trade execution will not be an impairment to their learning experience." The lag caused me problems with Simvest too. It's not appropriate for day traders. But we'll go with it if there's no alternavative.

 

[easysurfer]

I'm going to look through that list. Investopedia's simulator "does not currently offer a real-time trading environment with live prices. However for most users the 15 minute lag in trade execution will not be an impairment to their learning experience." The lag caused me problems with Simvest too. It's not appropriate for day traders. But we'll go with it if there's no alternavative.

I skimmed over the top rated one but seems to me like their contests are only monthly ones and created by them (not sure) so looked at Investopedia. I like that Investopedia is not limited to a month or year in a contest timeframe.

After you are done looking through the list, let us know. Then we can rack up the pool balls and try again .

 

[RISP]

I shall consider myself Champion of the hearts. Bring on the next contest and I will crush you peasants again!

 

[Boho]

OK, we'll go with Investopedia.

 

[easysurfer]

OK, we'll go with Investopedia.

In Investopdia, the market delay can be adjusted down to 1 minute min. But their explanation goes: "Market Delay - Because we use a 20 minute delayed datafeed, it is necessary to hold market orders for a certain time before being filled. We strongly recommend that this be set to 20. If it is not, there is a high probability that some orders may get stale quotes."

 

[Lawrencewendall]

OK, we'll go with Investopedia.

I say keep simvest running anyhow.

 

[NW-Bound]

... I can start with 1MIL if you want. But that's just an extra zero to contend with...

I was replying to Fermion's idea of using real money.

Even $1M is small for some posters here. They have some stock positions more than $1M each easily (but only a few of mine are more than $100K).

 

[easysurfer]

I was replying to Fermion's idea of using real money.

I thought maybe we just wanted to give ourselves a 10X raise from 100K to 1MIL .

 

[NW-Bound]

Sure. Do that too. The more money one has, the more stocks and diversification one can have. It's like running your own MF, which usually has a couple of hundred positions at least. The $5 trading fee eats too much into a $100K portfolio.

 

[NW-Bound]

Absolutely good that he came clean on this.

But was anyone giving him a hard time about that? I think he was only getting a hard time for his claims of obvious superiority...

I think I have read all of Boho's posts. I did not think he was serious, and was just jesting. I could be wrong, of course.

 

[easysurfer]

Sure. Do that too. The more money one has, the more stocks and diversification one can have. It's like running your own MF, which usually has a couple of hundred positions at least. The $5 trading fee eats too much into a $100K portfolio.

Sounds reasonable to me.

 

[easysurfer]

Looks like Investopdia is a no go for me.

Digging deeper, can't trade mutual funds or bonds .

Back to the drawing board and starting to feel like Goldilocks.

 

[Boho]

Looks like Investopdia is a no go for me.

Digging deeper, can't trade mutual funds or bonds .

Back to the drawing board and starting to feel like Goldilocks.

If you change your mind or choose something else, try to make the delay a little longer than suggested just in case there's a race condition (that's a programming term but you know what I mean). If it's longer than their updates that will reduce the chances of a problem.

And keep the trading fees similar to current fees. $19.99 is too high these days.

If ETFs are allowed, I don't see the big deal about no mutual funds. That's the least of the issues I have with the contest.

Since we're the founding fathers of this contest, I won't create it until you have time to figure out what you want, but I think we need to choose something.

 

[easysurfer]

If you change your mind or choose something else, try to make the delay a little longer than suggested just in case there's a race condition (that's a programming term but you know what I mean). If it's longer than their updates that will reduce the chances of a problem.

And keep the trading fees similar to current fees. $19.99 is too high these days.

If ETFs are allowed, I don't see the big deal about no mutual funds. That's the least of the issues I have with the contest.

Since we're the founding fathers of this contest, I won't create it until you have time to figure out what you want, but I think we need to choose something.

Investopedia does allow for ETFs. But one thing worth noting, I think you have to be a registered user to see the leader board. In other words, look like no viewing of the leader board from the [-]cheap seats[/-] sidelines here, which does take away some of the fun and to keep in mind.

As for the parameters and delays, probably won't impact me but maybe some of the other bigger traders here want to chime in as to what settings to use. Just decide on things like the commissions that we can agree on.

I do like start with $1MIL, and 3 year contest.

Probably keep the part of market delay, daily volume and option delay volume.

 

[easysurfer]

I'm going to register with "How the Market Works" to see how friendly that looks. They might have a viewable public leader board that would be more fun. If not, investopdia would work for me with ETFs.

 

[NW-Bound]

I got free trading in real life for up to 100 trades/month, spread between 3 accounts with one particular brokerage, but it may be a special deal. Schwab, where I still have accounts, charges $4.95, so $5 would seem fair for trading fees.