Agent Disco and I have decided to have a stock trading contest. The contest starts on May 9th and ends on May 31st.
We would like all of our readers and members to parcticipate and Investopedia.com makes it quite easy to do so.
The way the "Game" works is you start with $100k and are able to buy and sell, stocks, options and bonds that are listed in any North American exchange. I will be able to keep track of how people are doing and will occasionally post results here at Cashtalk.
Trades work as if you traded through a company like Scottrade or Ameritrade. You pay a commission for each purchase or sale. It will be up to you to decide when and what to buy or sell.
The person with the highest portfolio value wins the recognition of his or her peers and will be lauded on this blog until we run out of breath or find something else to do.
We would love for you to play, not just so you can achieve fame and recognition by your peers, but so you can take this opportunity to learn more about stocks and the market.
Personally, my strategy will be to buy one or two stocks from each of the places I've lived in my life. I'll have more info about those stocks on Monday. I'll probably hold on to them after the initial purchase. You can do whatever you want. Choose your own style and learn from the experience.
If you don't know much about stocks, want to do research, or want to know the ticker symbol of a company, I recommend these two sites:
MSN Money Central
and
Yahoo! Finance
Each of these sites have excellent "look-up" tools and a lot of statistics (if you're the type of person that finds that interesting and useful).
Ideally, over the next 3 weeks, we can discuss our picks and talk about why we made the decisions we did. This can be a great learning experience for everyone involved.
We'd love for you to play. To join, you just need to click "here"
3 comments:
This is great. I'd encourage each and every one of you to sign up, even if you don't know anything about investing. In fact, a lot of people subscribe to the notion that you will do just as well - if not better - than the highly trained analysts you see on TV and in newspapers.
Let's test the theory! Just buy the company you work for and hold it all month if you want. Just get involved! It's free! It's fun! And you just may learn something you can use to actually make REAL money.
This will be an extremely short game. 3 weeks in stock market terms is not a lot of time, but it should get people used to some of the basics.
Perhaps after this initial contest, we can have another, with a longer time limit (3-6 months?).
I encourage you to sign up. You can also sign up at any time during the contest and before it ends on May 31st.
This should be a great learning experience, if you are willing to put in a little work.
Yes - the short period leaves one especially open to trying out short-term very high risk startegies like shorting and options trading.
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