I think people (and by that, I mean mostly men) don’t like to lose and specially not in public. With investing/trading you will lose somewhere, somehow. The trick is to learn from it and keep going, who cares anyway, it’s a personal journey and nobody is right all the time. That’s way people wait to enter, they first need to see somebody else is down by twenty-something percent and then go in. Boggles my mind. 
I think your comments are accurate as regards traders as some 95% are never successful. However when investing this is a different kettle of fish. If you invest for the long terms then you need to invest in solid companies that you feel will enhance your wealth over time. This type of investing is not like taking a lottery ticket, and hoping to win a bundle, but rather participate with the companies as they grow. Many companies have some form of cyclic progression and also suffer from pull backs from time to time but these are normally company generated - Woolworth's is a prime example of 2 events which have occurred and I still hold my stock - in the early 2000's they got their clothing merchandise wrong and it hurt their share price dramatically, and the most recent is the Davy Jones fiasco - however I am comfortable to hold and add in this share.
To my mind there is a more sinister matter which I don't know how you wash out of the system and that is irresponsible journalistic (in its widest sense) reporting and everyone sees the future in the tea leaves.
As to people waiting to see who is on the bottom of the board - I don't buy that as the competition awards you R 100,000 per month and you can quite comfortably sit on the sidelines whilst being in cash awaiting the option to buy.
I have long held the view that this is a traders competition and not an investors competition - you are not penalised for trading other than through the buy/sell charges - my view is that maybe it needs to be split into a trading completion and a further one for investors which will cover a 3 year window period
So just my opinions on the set up
