Barrons Challenge (Investment Game)

[chenchow]

This is a stock investment competition using fictitious money of $100,000 sponsored by Dow Jones. The stock traded includes stocks in NYSE, Dow Jones and Nasdaq.

The competition is from 15th Feb to 15th May 2005, with you need to register by 15th Feb and have fully invested. The more detailed information is inside the website www.barronschallenge.com .

I would look at this as a practice to learn more about stock investment. It would be a great learning opportunities for fellow ReComers.

This sounds more speculation and gambling than investment. Three months is way too short for good investment ideas to show their results. So, if you plan to take part in this game, here's a tip to end up at the top.

Take lots of risk...after all, if you lose the money, you lose virtual money anyway, right? The problem with these kinds of game is that if you don't undertake risk, there will be (many) people who do and if the outcome turns out in their favor, they will outperform the market (in the 3 months).
Too bad they don't have options trading; options are typically more volatile that stock prices.

BTW, I heard Barrons is a good magazine for investment ideas. I don't subscribe to it, but it's a Dow Jones publication (which also published the WSJ which I do read and recommend).

[chenchow]

Yeah, I agree with prince on that matter.

In fact, this Barrons Challenge is part of the grading for my Finance class. So, all of us in the finance class would actually participate in this game and the Professor would allocate grades based on how much is our total value at the end of 3 months (basically coincide with end of semester).

Yeah, it is not a perfect simulation or anything and there are a few rules over there, like you cannot hold more than $10K at any time, and you earn 3% interest per year on money you have, and you pay 8% interest per year on money that you loan. And everyone is limited to 50 trades in the 3 months, with each stock we must hold between $5K to $10K, and at any point, must have 10 different stocks in our portfolio.

Chenchow, one easy way is to replicate portfolios of good funds like Dodge & Cox (say buy the top 10 stocks in their portfolio).

http://www.dodgeandcox.com/funds/stock/characteristics.html

Too bad you have to fully invested, otherwise I would recommend just keeping all the money in cash. It's the surest way to get above-average results in a very short time period of 3 months (no one really knows how the market will perform in that short period of time).

[DecentMerson]

this is fun....

exposed to stock exchange since young... hopefully, those "analytical skills" are still usable....

i do concur that 3 months is really to short... way to short for any serious investment.... more like gambling in casino.... and with all the short sell and short buy... hmmm...

but, let's have fun....

come on Recommers... let's make this a healthy competition among us...