MarketWatch Investing Game anyone?

DILYSI Dave wrote: My biggest worry is when to cash out. I like my moves, but none of them are long term. I'm basically playing the final scene of Point Break, playing chicken with the rip cord.

Pulled out early. Had to spend a few hours away from the computer, so I set a sell price. Left $14k on the table between my sell and today's close.

How do you set a sell price?

SVreX wrote: How do you set a sell price?

By using a stop or limit order.

JamesMcD wrote:

SVreX wrote: How do you set a sell price?

By using a stop or limit order.

I was asking where to find them in the game.

In reply to SVreX:

You can set it when you buy, or you can click TRADE on your stock and it will go to the transaction page. You can then set it there.

Every single thing I own went positive yesterday.

That's kinda nice.

PHeller wrote: Still not quite sure how the short works. Lets say I buy 4 shares of stock valued at $25 each for a total of $100. This is the highest 52w price for this stock, so I expect it to fall back down to its average of around $18. If I sell at $18, will I make $21 for a total of $121?

The way shorting works is this: Say you expect a stock to go down in value. If this is the case, you short it. I'll use Weyerhauser in my hypothetical example (and combine yours). You see that building permits have fallen and since Weyerhauser sells lumber, you expect it to drop to $18 / share from its $25/ share now. So you short it. Essentially what you are doing is borrowing the shares from someone else, with the promise to replace them later. You sell the 4 borrowed shares at $25 / share for a total of 100 bucks. Sure enough it drops to $18 / share so now you cover your short. Essentially you are buying the 4 shares you borrowed to give them back. Those 4 shares cost you $72. Your profit on this is 100-72 = $28.

Here's a caution you need to be A) certain it will fall and B) use a stop loss in case it does rise. A stop loss basically says it will cover the short at a certain price. The reason for that is this: Your potential gain on this is whatever the difference between the share price and zero (in this case $25) but your loss potential is unlimited. That stock could go to $1000 / share. In which case you've lost $975 / share because you expected it to go down, instead it rocketed up. SO, KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

That last bit is critical. When I started this a week ago, my intention was to help folks become more conversational about investing. I think that is getting lost. Some folks have dozens and dozens of trades, 3 days into trading. They are going for short-term movements. That cannot possibly be investing. That is speculating or gambling. From one of Warren Buffett's professors, Benjamin Graham: "An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative."

He also says, "At other times he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and operating results of his companies." This quote is what I envisioned when I set this up. If you are working short term price movements, you are not concerned about operating results because by-and-large, those are only published quarterly and a day's share price movement is not likely reflective of that day's operating results. (i.e. that day's stock price will not reflect that day's shipments and sales - so who cares about that day's stock price?)

....anyway, that's my rant....I'm not trying to be a kill joy - just I think my intention for setting this up is somewhat getting lost. How does a short work? That's what I wanted it to be about. Not, "I have to capitalize on a 1 penny price per share movement."

I've put the majority of my money into things that I believe will be more expensive a year from now. I'm planning to use some of whats left to be more aggressive with, just to learn more about all the different strategies.

In reply to CamaroKeith:

Don't underestimate the value.

There are lessons to be learned, and we are learning.

Sometimes you learn by doing it right, other times, you learn by doing it wrong, or by watching others mistakes, etc...

DILYSI Dave wrote: In reply to SVreX: You can set it when you buy, or you can click TRADE on your stock and it will go to the transaction page. You can then set it there.

Got it. Thanks.

So what is "Limit"? Is it the reverse (ie: sell when they price hits a certain low)?

In reply to CamaroKeith:

I think the learning experience is that people are using it to do things they wouldn't do in real life. That's learning (though it's probably not investing).

So, Hardy and Swankie are both gambling. One has made better bets than the other. I'll bet neither of them would have invested real money the same way. Either way, it reinforces what you are saying. Knowledge is value. Hardy has some knowledge, which he is using to his advantage.

It gives all of us a chance to see what happens, and learn.

Give a bunch of testosterone pumped car guys online a million bucks and tell them it is a competition and there will be winners and losers... What did you expect?

But it still has value.

I'd almost like to see a more open discussion- actually sharing the real info. What purchases, strategies, what works, and what doesn't. At my house, we have 4 players in the game. We have decided to open up our conversation. We are sharing our strategies with each other, and seeing what works and what does not. We are conversing about it daily over supper.

It's all part of learning.

Personally, I'd be thrilled. If one of my kids beat me.

Oh yeah if this was real money I wouldn't be doing anything like this.

IPOs and working at a computer are my secrets. It's very easy to see almost immediately if an IPO will gain or lose. I bought Yodlee for $12 and sold it for $16.30 and I bought a few hundred thousand worth of shares.

I've had other IPOs that I didn't watch closely and they tanked almost immediately and I had to wait for a few days to get anything back out of them. CYBR was one of these.

I've been doing a lot of stock screening looking for shares that are typically very solid that have recently hit 52w lows and will likely recovered. Unless its ITT Tech, in which case I won't touch it.

I work in the natural gas industry so I knew of a few companies who have been growing in our industry, unfortunately most of them don't appear to have great gain in their stock so I left them alone. Energy in general seems to be hit or miss, unless its solar. Solar is doing really well right now.

I'm interested in learning how you find smaller companies, or maybe stocks the represent a few smaller companies and what companies those area.

It would also be fun to be able to incorporate other investment strategies like lending clubs or real estate investment funds.

I always hated those old car collector types that would buy something like a classic Ferrari, then leave it in a climate-controlled garage and never drive it. After the opening day of the game, I think I see what they're getting at I got freaking hosed on day 1, the following few days haven't been bad (didn't move anything around yet) but I haven't crawled out of the hole I was Sparta-kicked into on Day 1. A Ferrari Daytona or some similar doesn't look so bad after that, HAHA, only problem would be resisting the urge to drive it

I'm also experimenting with my first short sale... not sure I did it right, though, trying to figure out the "limit" and "stop" functions work in layman's terms (e.g. how the triggers work, it just says "limit" or "stop" and a blank for the number, I don't know which one does what thing).

This is my chance to experiment and try to learn how the black magic voodoo of the stock market works. In real life my Roth TSP is split into a few different long-term funds so it's a lot more conservative than my game portfolio! And working a lot better... maybe that's a signal

I'm pretty sure everything I've set up so far will gain nicely before the game ends but I'm just gonna have to tough it out right now. I've lost so much on a few that I'm doing well to have nearly evened it out with gains on the rest. I could have made more if I'd waited a bit longer to short but it'll be small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

"Virtual Stock Exchange is experiencing technical problems, please check back."

BAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

<---jumps out of window

EDIT, So in the real world what happens when the website takes a E36 M3 and you can't trade when you want to?

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! also!

I was trying to order more of a stock I had, didn't realize the "sell" button was highlighted instead of "buy"... sold 90% of my highest-gaining stock of the day, try to click to buy it back, website crashes. Apparently you can't buy more of something from within the portfolio, you can only sell. Buying only from the trade tab

I believe i read somewhere that full time investors have a high rate of suicide.

What's the rate of laptop defenestration? The stock I jumped into was Tesla, decided I wanted more shares right after the market opened, it was around 3% gain. That's when the SNAFU happened and I sold 90% of my existing shares instead of buying more. Tesla went to 5% gain. Post website recovery, got the order sorted out, now it's hovering around 1.5%.

MarketWatch homepage linked to an article saying Sears was having financial issues. Analyst sentiment was fully in the red. Decided that was a good place to experiment and try to learn how short-selling works. Sears is up 3.79% so far today, other than my top two it's outperforming the rest of my portfolio 4:1 >:(

jsquared wrote: BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! also! I was trying to order more of a stock I had, didn't realize the "sell" button was highlighted instead of "buy"... sold 90% of my highest-gaining stock of the day, try to click to buy it back, website crashes. Apparently you can't buy more of something from within the portfolio, you can only sell. Buying only from the trade tab

Reminds me of a time many years ago when I put an ultra-valuable item up for sale in an MMORPG. If you weren't playing the game, you'd sit your character in the town square in AFK mode, selling things like a human vending machine. Well one day when I was putting the character into "vending machine mode" I forgot to put a zero on that ultra-valuable item it sold pretty quick...

I did that in the real world once.

I had an extremely rare record album worth in excess of $20k. I accidently put it in the garage sale pile, and sold it for a quarter.

SVreX wrote: I did that in the real world once. I had an extremely rare record album worth in excess of $20k. I accidently put it in the garage sale pile, and sold it for a quarter.

Oh man, I would cry for a day and then drink myself to death

Today is ridiculous.

What are unrealized gains and how do they become realized? I currently have 48k in unrealized gains.

What are the chances of an afternoon rebound?

Man you guys are screwed if I'm moving up into 11th place like this.

Just a little more drop in one stock and I can safely get rid of one of these cement shoes...