7936
The Investor Challenge / May's money is in.
« on: May 01, 2013, 09:51:35 pm »
Everyone should have another R100 000 in cash. So who's going to stay in cash or what do you plan on buying this month?
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7937
The Investor Challenge / Re: investor challenge
« on: May 01, 2013, 01:00:35 pm »
Definitely. I'll most likely put some ads on the site to make it self sustaining.
7938
Shares / Help the newbies
« on: April 30, 2013, 01:44:30 pm »
A bunch of the competition users are clearly new to investing so I'd like to include some advice to the newbies in the email when the monthly deposit email goes out every month.
For the first month I thought of explaining how buying less than R30k worth of shares means you pay an excessive amount in fees.
Any other ideas as to what I could use in future months? Something which seems like common sense to us might be useful to a newby.
For the first month I thought of explaining how buying less than R30k worth of shares means you pay an excessive amount in fees.
Any other ideas as to what I could use in future months? Something which seems like common sense to us might be useful to a newby.
7939
Shares / Re: Today's Outlook
« on: April 30, 2013, 08:44:53 am »
I'm waiting with anticipation for the 2 big events you listed in the other thread...
7940
Shares / Re: The Investor Challenge Competition begins Monday the 22nd April 2013
« on: April 28, 2013, 11:02:30 am »
Dividends have been tough to figure out. There isn't a list of LDTs I can grab on a website. I did manage to find most of the ex-dividend dates. AFAIK if you hold shares before the ex-div date you get a payment. OMLs ex dividend date was the 22nd, so even though it was after LDT, they did technically own the shares at the right time...
I'll go with thoughts from others here?
Unless I find a site offering all those dates, the only way I could see of having things perfect would be to have humans entering the dates for me. Perhaps double checked by someone else. That way contestants would have to enter the LDTs and ex dividend dates.
I'll go with thoughts from others here?
Unless I find a site offering all those dates, the only way I could see of having things perfect would be to have humans entering the dates for me. Perhaps double checked by someone else. That way contestants would have to enter the LDTs and ex dividend dates.
7941
The Investor Challenge / Re: investor challenge
« on: April 26, 2013, 01:32:11 pm »If you allow for sales then I think it goes against the grain of the competition which is an "investment competition" and the very essence is to remain in a particular counter for the longer term rather than trying to turn this competition into a trading operation. If the tide turns because of a broad pull back chances are that it will affect all investors in the competition across the board. If one looks at the shares chosen by investors some have tried to pick penny shares with a view to making significant gains - but this is only likely to happen over the short term - so its a case of - you pays your money and you reap what you sow. If you do allow sales then maybe you should restrict it to only one sale a month - this could create an admin nightmare for yourself, and similar fees must be imposed as for buying of shares
My thinking was either one of two things, a) only allow selling at a loss (ie avoid the tax-man's definition of trading), or b) running two parallel leaderboards. One for traders and one for investors. If someone sells at profit they are automatically marked as a trader.
There's still a few months to iron this out so I'm sure we'll find something that works. My goal with this website was an education into investment, so I really didn't want it to be a trading contest. I feel investment is something South Africans don't think about enough, and even more so when it comes to equity investment, the best performing class.
7943
The Investor Challenge / Re: investor challenge
« on: April 26, 2013, 11:13:14 am »
It seems there is more support for selling than not selling, so most likely that'll happen next year as I don't want to change the rules during a comp run. There could be quite a lot of changes, let me know if you have more ideas. I may have a vote on a couple of topics later.
7944
Shares / Re: Today's Outlook
« on: April 25, 2013, 04:12:01 pm »Gee-whiz can we go down now pretty please, 1000+ points up since Tuesday; I've almost stared panicking for my shorts.
Lol, have some consideration for the investors, I'm finally in the green again today
7945
The Investor Challenge / Re: 100 people now competing in the challenge!
« on: April 25, 2013, 03:11:14 pm »
Just checked the IPs, no 2 are the same, BUT, in SA we mostly use dynamic ips, so that might not be a good reflection. Your guess would be as good as mine...
7946
The Investor Challenge / Re: investor challenge
« on: April 25, 2013, 01:22:34 pm »Well, if you are not actively selling your shares in order to make PROFIT, then you will not really be seen as a trader. You are allowed to sell your assets in order to limit or stop your losses (which is OK because there will not be any profit anyway). I also prefer a competition where it is more about smart investing than active trading. But as there is a leaderboard and there is a competition, one would like to be able to sell a share that is consisitently going into the negative, instead of holding on to it. In real life I would probably hold on to a share for at least 3 months before actually selling it, and as this is a 12 month competition I guess it is OK. With the Sanlam investment challenge, I think the only reason for the limited trading allowance was exactly to limit excessive trading and thus level the playing field between "normal" people and actual active traders that sit night and day. Also, I would think the software of the program would require a lot more sophistication as the trading increases. Only allowing people to sell if they dispose of all of a particular share, limits the amount of trading as one has to think twice before just selling. You could also not buy more of a share you currently had, unless you sold your current lot.
Ah thanks for that! Maybe I should consider allowing sales for a loss then! I'll see. By next year we should all have a good idea as to the best format, this was just how I thought it should run for now.
7947
The Investor Challenge / Re: New feature requests go here
« on: April 25, 2013, 01:18:11 pm »
At the moment no, but next year, who knows. I'll take some running feedback as we go along, maybe even do some votes on the site.
7948
The Investor Challenge / Re: The challenge has begun
« on: April 24, 2013, 06:12:04 pm »
Jadeb, I've heard rumours that your screen stopped working again
7949
The Investor Challenge / 100 people now competing in the challenge!
« on: April 24, 2013, 02:44:54 pm »
We've just had the 100th person start trading in the challenge 
Not too bad I think! There are another 50 or so who are sitting on their money, either not keen or picking an entry point.
Not too bad I think! There are another 50 or so who are sitting on their money, either not keen or picking an entry point.
7950
The Investor Challenge / Re: investor challenge
« on: April 24, 2013, 12:34:10 pm »My view is that this is an "investor" challenge, and I for one treat it like that. As the dude in charge of the investment club I'm trying to simulate what I would've done if I were to invest R400k worth of our money.
OP does have a valid point though, sure his club member would be ecstatic over that return, but less of they lost 80% odd on the day.
I know I will never win this competition as one of the guys with all their money in a single equity is bound to get it right, I use this as a measure against myself and the ALSI to see my performance.
Just to quickly derail here....
Why not clone this competition and make a trading simulation! I not sure how much work that would entail, but I'm pretty sure you going to create huge traffic and maybe really earn some moola here for all the hard work you have put in.
Cool, going to try it out!
Sanlam used to have a similar challenge like this. You only had a once off amount to start with, lets say R100 000, and the winner is the person with the most value at the end date. Some trading were allowed, but IIRC you could only sell if you sell ALL of a certain share, and you could only buy more of a certain share, if you first sell them all. Kind of like a treating your investments as seperate batches. I would say that allowing at least an all sell of certain share would make sense, because if you made a bad investment in a share that continues to drop in price, the natural option would be to sell it to minimise your losses.
How would the tax man see that sale? Would that on it's own be enough to class you as a trader?
Maybe next year I'll run a trading contest, either in parallel or integrated with this one. Allow sales, but have two leaderboards, one for the investors, and one for traders. It might be interesting to see how they compare.