Market Speculation

[Disclaimer]

The baseline should really be an index like the S&P 500.

The true baseline is always the Fed rate on T-bills which is generally accepted as the risk-free rate of return.

http://www.bankrate.com/rates/interest-rates/treasury.aspx

So using the short term 3-month rate.... 0.095% or $100,007.81

[smashweights]

The true baseline is always the Fed rate on T-bills which is generally accepted as the risk-free rate of return.

http://www.bankrate.com/rates/interest-rates/treasury.aspx

So using the short term 3-month rate.... 0.095% or $100,007.81

That may be a baseline, but that's not the correct benchmark for what they're doing: trading stocks. If you want to compare to guaranteed, risk-free return, sure. But if you want to see how they are doing relative to the overall stock market, no.

FWIW: Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, VTSMX, is up to $104,190 from the beginning of June if starting with $100k. So something like that would be a good indicator of how they're doing relative to the US market.

Does the simulation factor in short-term capital gains taxes into your earnings?

[20thGix]

can we decrease market delay? Thats a killer for me LOL

Also Daily volume since it hard to trade before the open since it sees no volume.

Here is what they say about changing those:

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.

Daily Volume Rule - Trades cannot exceed a certain percentage of volume for the day. The default value is 10% and this applies to both stocks and options. This prevents a thinly-traded stock from being traded in the simulator when it can't be traded in the actual markets.

[Disclaimer]

You can pick whatever arbitrary baseline you want for this experiment, but when doing analysis, the RFROR is the baseline.

Edited June 29, 2012 by JRMMiii

[20thGix]

Does the simulation factor in short-term capital gains taxes into your earnings?

Here is how you Account Value is calculated:

Account Value: Your portfolio's current value.

Calculated as: = cash + market value of stocks + market value of options - market value of shorted stocks

[c7fx]

Here is what they say about changing those:

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.

Daily Volume Rule - Trades cannot exceed a certain percentage of volume for the day. The default value is 10% and this applies to both stocks and options. This prevents a thinly-traded stock from being traded in the simulator when it can't be traded in the actual markets.

Thats ok I got used to the rules we had. I just had to remember not to trade before the market opened since it would see no volume.

[magley64]

I think I did well...

[Radio Flyer]

I did alright seeing as how I only made three purchases and no sells.

[c7fx]

I did alright seeing as how I only made three purchases and no sells.

Not bad at all. I had fun at the end of the month having some cash waiting for the big down days to jump into some good quality companies.

I have been trying to do this with my real stocks I just wish I had 100k to work with Ha!

[magley64]

looks like i got the bronze