Share Forum - Discuss JSE shares and join the Investor Challenge

Maybe if you changed the rules to exclude traders and speculators more people will join.

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   

Its true gcr, traders trade on market trend and psychology whereas investors invest on value.  Traders go for high risk, high reward in the shortest period of time whereas investors prefer relatively lower risk in quality stocks over a long period of time.  Both have merit and both requires research, savvy and skill imo.  That’s why I find “The Challenge” invaluable. It’s trading/investing with training-wheels-on in a safe but real-life environment where you can test your own strategies, even if it means hanging out in the same pond with others who trade and/or invest. Oh, and did I mention it is free. Market makers give you two free weeks with virtual money and then you have to go live with real money and real risk.  To split it would be a nightmare I think, investing for 3-5 yrs is medium term investing, and if you really want to trade you’ll have to bring in geared options as well, talk about horrifying nightmare. Think it’s just a question of practically to be honest and I also think it serves its original purpose, (training/learning) with other like-minded individuals, with flying colors.  But you are right, trading will always win the battle in short term money making.  Come on gcr, come over to the dark side and trade with us, even if its only here on “The Challenge”.   Never too young to learn, never too old to change. 

@GCR, trading profits are taxed at 30% as an incentive to the investors.

Edit: Now showing tax in the holdings page.

Then the next question is if a forum person sells the bought share within the competition period is the Rand value of their holdings reduced at time of sale. I,e, they are assessed for MST, brokerage and other taxes + CGT on sale?

Yes, I am glad I held onto ADI. Made 52% over the past month. She merely went out of favour even though the fundamentals were great. The best performer over the past 2 weeks.

Is it possible to have an option to search the share code/name?

CTRL+F on the buy page?