Ways to improve the comp.

[LORD JAMLA]

Personally, I think it should be a 6 week - 2 month comp for the following reasons.

Direction is relatively easy to predict, time is not.

Winners do not have enough time to re-spend their winnings, for example I've only got a week to re-invest me 4 grand i made - no real chance to take advantage of compound investing

To many one-hit wonders who spend the lot on any old penny share hoping it will double. Nine times out of ten it halves, but the one that doubles wins the comp. No skill in that and it wouldn't happen in real life.

Key to trading is patience. When you've only got a month, there is no time for patience.

Any thoughts?

LBJ (Lord Bloomin' Jamla)

 

[Sharky]

Thanks for the feedback LBJ,

I'm looking to revise the competition over the summer. I think now its been running for a number of month, I'm sure there are a list of things which regular players would like to see added, improved or removed.

Let's make this thread a list of those things and make the competition even better. I'd welcome any members thoughts, and the length of the competition is probably a good starting point. What does everyone else think?

Paul.

 

[highland]

I would go for a longer competition, as well. I would suggest a financial quarter though, makes more sense and gives plenty of time to reinvest money or claw your way back from the brink to win the competition. I would suggest an option each weekend or monthly to chuck your portfolio and start again, otherwise people will lose interest.

On the penny share. I like to stick the money in them, but all to often the spread is the killer and even a 100% gain can fail to cover the spread on some of them. It is however a legitimate investment and can make a decent return, even if it will more often fail than succeed.

The only items that I find a problem are the 9am trading for any overnight purchases, never seem to have come out on top with these. Is there anything that we could do to change this, even if it was altered to the opening price the following morning?

The other is the 20 minutes delay in trading, but this is because there is a 20 minute delay in the prices used, so not much chance of changing that unless the prices become realtime. 20 minutes can be an age in the current climate.

 

[waldorf]

Comp fine as it is for me, would like to see an improvement in stop and limit though, as i was stopped out of SPT when it had no stop selected, and limit out of LGEN @ 817/5 when 82 was select and attained.
Col

 

[Sharky]

Thanks for the comments, keep them coming in. As for overnight trades triggered at 9:00am, I can move this back to say 8:30am if that's preferred - just weary of the wide spreads at the open. Certainly the stops/limits have proved problematic, it's a nice feature but this relies on the data feed being 100%, any whipsaws in the quote often gets an instant trigger. But I've got some ideas to improve this on the current delayed feed, as for a realtime feed, it would simply cost too much to justify it unfortunately.

sharky.

 

[LORD JAMLA]

Mate, you got to make it longer. I shorted SDR @ 519 AVZ @ 320.75, RTR @ 115 last week and the goose has only come home to roost today. I would have been in the Top 5 today and with all this sunny weather I fancy myself a wee t-shirt. I don't agree with the ditching the portfolio idea, if the comp is longer it gives you more time to come back from the dead so peeps won't lose interest. Neither the 8.30 am idea, spread is too big before 9.00am.
Sharky, I never knew the comp ended on Friday, when is this month's ending???
Rgds
LBJ

 

[highland]

I think you have to allow for the possibility of ditching portfolios. If not, what would you do when you short a penny share, then it doubles, leaving you with less than £0. Don't say it won't happen, because it did a few competitions ago.

People will lose interest, if they don't think they have a chance or aren't interested in trying to regain their capital. I have lost interest a few times when penny shares hasn't gone the right way at the start.

You could limit the ditching option to only those that have dropped below £25K or £10K. Their portfolio could be frozen and a second one started marked with a number, showing how many times they have had to restart. A name and shame table could be shown, or a limit on the number of restarts, thus putting people off constantly taking risky penny shares in the hope that one comes good.

As for the 8:30am - 9am overnight trading, would it be possible to provide the option of either opening or 9am on any overnight trades? This would allow the investor the choice and they could then decide whether to take the risk of the increased spread or hold off till 9am and risk losing any initial gains that are made.

 

[Monty Burns]

IMHO we shouldn't get to ditch losing portfolios and restart from fresh. The real world isn't like that so there's no reason why the game should. What you could have (and this might be complicated to implement) is a facility where people can "borrow" fantasy money and be charged some serious fantasy rates (credit card rates!) That way people can take on additional risk...

 

[LORD JAMLA]

Agreed, with my own money I would never put it on a hit and hope penny share - it's too much to do with luck. If you can invest wisely in the bigger stocks it is relatively easy to make money, so why risk it on penny shares. I can see why you don't want to see any change Monty, it's because your top - again. Not a friend of mine by any chance?

 

[Uncle]

I would make two suggestions:

1. Include a dealing charge on buying and selling - say £10 each way.

2. Restrict it to the FTSE 350 which is what I am sure most traders will concentrate on due to the lowish spread and volumes.
Also it would satisfy the comments re: a quick profit gambling on a penny share - which no right minded person would risk in real life trading.

 

[ChartMan]

I agree with Uncle.... no right minded trader is going to put £10k on a penny share and expect it to go up overnight, or even this year...

 

[highland]

What about us wrong minded individuals that have been brainwashed to think a share valued at less than 10p is more likely to double than one valued at £1? LOL.