So, who shall we say is winning then? 
[paraphrase]thinksnow
You better hope all that day trading doesn’t bite you in the ass[/paraphrase]
Bet you wish you still had that fifty, eh? 
Well, the 23rd has arrived! And…
They pushed the deadline off again. :mad:
Today, the VSE Website says:
Anyone believe 'em?
Site is up & running.
Yours truly made a cool 4% during the interregnum. I’m now at 116000.
(The above is NOT a boast, it is merely posted for informational purposes only. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge - an Internet bridge, that is - that I can sell you. For cheap.)
Us day traders got pig screwed by that temporary shut-down!
I went from a hundred and seventy-five grand down to a measly fifty-four 'G’s.
Unfair I tell you!
I thought our records were going to be erased and we’d start from scratch.
This site’s been wonky ever since the new game started! Unfair! It’s not an accurate representation of what I’m capable of.
I should be able to smoke you hayseeds’.
Hayseeds? I can barely tell the diff between a cow and a horse.
Well, after investing smart and then losing a good 19% in the last few days from tech, it’s time to good for broke, sell everyting and short some techies, baby!
Five days left folks, time to shit-or-git.
NAME PORT. VALUE % GAIN TRADES
thinksnow $123,717.20 23.72% 14
superhead $114,293.52 14.29% 3
LamarMundane $113,627.41 13.63% 6
pantom $112,968.45 12.97% 38
jantom $110,244.47 10.24% 17
beakerxf $106,567.77 6.57% 3
Shylock $105,384.88 5.38% 6
sdmb_beatle $103,181.70 3.18% 1
Modian $100,624.33 0.62% 12
BearNenno $100,417.00 0.42% 0
sd_teabag $100,417.00 0.42% 0
AdNoctum $100,377.32 0.38% 1
Dignan1 $100,373.02 0.37% 0
robgruver $99,856.94 -0.14% 1
bibliophage $96,721.01 -3.28% 4
sdimbert $95,931.42 -4.07% 10
JCThunder $91,822.24 -8.18% 8
Saltire $89,406.01 -10.59% 4
PaulTheYounger $88,860.80 -11.14% 3
corvus Prince $86,104.17 -13.90% 11
CnoteChris $85,231.81 -14.77% 112
Heh. Heh heh hee!
How the mighty have fallen!
Actually, I’m at: $104,876.72.
You know, it figures: after losing $15,000+ on Cisco, I sell it all, turn around and short it and it rebounds.
:mad: :mad: :mad:
Oh, man, thinksnow, we can’t catch a break…
I shorted SONE on market open last month, after they announced a negative surprise of more than 200%. Thought it was a sure thing. VSE went down the next morning. It took me TWO WEEKS to find out whether or not the order had been placed! In the mean time SONE SHOOTS UP nearly 25%!!! C’mon! :mad:
Of course, the order got placed and I got screwed. Now today it’s back down to (almost) break-even, so I’m with you…covering, and looking for a quick score.
Happy scrounging!
Paul
Gotta watch out for that whiplash. You could get a broken neck that way.
…with about an hour and a half to go:
NAME TOTAL VALUE % GAIN # TRADES
1 thinksnow $123,717.20 23.72% 14
2 superhead $114,293.52 14.29% 3
3 LamarMundane $113,627.41 13.63% 6
4 pantom $112,968.45 12.97% 38
5 jantom $110,244.47 10.24% 17
6 beakerxf $106,567.77 6.57% 3
7 Shylock $105,384.88 5.38% 6
8 sdmb_beatle $103,181.70 3.18% 1
9 Modian $100,624.33 0.62% 12
10 BearNenno $100,417.00 0.42% 0
11 sd_teabag $100,417.00 0.42% 0
12 AdNoctum $100,377.32 0.38% 1
13 Dignan1 $100,373.02 0.37% 0
14 robgruver $ 99,856.94 -0.14% 1
15 bibliophage $ 96,721.01 -3.28% 4
16 sdimbert $ 95,931.42 -4.07% 10
17 JCThunder $ 91,822.24 -8.18% 8
18 Saltire $ 89,406.01 -10.59% 4
19 PaulTheYounger $ 88,860.80 -11.14% 3
20 corvus $ 86,104.17 -13.90% 11
21 CnoteChris $ 85,231.81 -14.77% 112
sdimbert, I don’t think those rankings have updated since last week. Seems to me they have had the exact same numbers for several days. My position since 3/2 has been all cash, about $97K.
Also, it still hasn’t made the trade I placed on 3/2, and there’s no way to cancel it. It’s just been sitting there since Friday…Not a biggie, since it was a stock I wanted to short and the price has gone up steadily since, so I’m not really complaining. 
It would be nice to play this game for a whole stretch without interruption (got into it a month late on 2/9). Not sure that VSE has shown itself to be all that reliable, but perhaps bugs will be ironed out after MassHysteria gets settled in. Looking forward to trading again…are we having another go at it?
Paul
BTW - It’s fun to be on the “dark side”…MUHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
Can’t do that on Yahoo Investment Challenge…no shorting allowed…
I had two outstanding orders, both from about the same time as Paul, 3/2, and neither executed as of last night. This morning they weren’t even on record as “Open Orders” nor in my “Order history” so I re-submitted them. My list listed order is numbered 19, but the ones I placed today are numbered 22 and 23, so VSE knows about the ones that are missing. The same ones that, had they been executed, would have saved me about $15,000 and earned me another $2,500.
This is crap.
It was fun for a bit, but the drop-out of service sucks. I guess you get what you pay for, eh?
All kidding aside, this site really stinks. It did the same no-trade thing to me too (I was trying to gain some ounce of credibility in the waning moments of this competition). No luck making any kind of trade.
It’s really too bad. It’d be nice to win or lose based on how well you actually did in the market, not on how well you were to get their software and server to recognize you. That’s what it really boils down to- pure luck with their site, not with the actual market.
And before you say that I’m bitching because I lost, I’ll be the first to admidt that had this system run correctly from the start, I’d never have reached the heights that I had- i.e., that $175,000.00 peak (I had wanted to sell for a day or two but couldn’t log in to the system to sell it. The stock shot upward in the interim.) Even if those stocks had stayed strong during this run of the competition, and I was far out ahead, I’d be complaining that it wasn’t won fairly.
If anyone can find a reliable site like this one once was (?), I’d be more than willing to give it a try again.
I know I can beat you rubes! -smile-
Yeah, I tried one last time to place an order at 3pm and it also didn’t go through…
Oh well, sdimbert, bring on the winners!
Paul
Right before the blackout period I went through a week of this vanishing order syndrome. Very annoying.
Also, it does look like those rankings are a bit old. If it doesn’t look like it’s updated, we may have to post our winnings here to see who’s on top.
There was a story in this week’s Barron’s about sites that host these kinds of games. One of them looks like you can set up private competitions like this one, called marketplayer.com. Maybe we should try? Can’t be any worse than this I don’t think.
As of tonight: sitting @ 113,573.63.
pantom, I checked out marketplayer*. When I checked on the link to build a new, private competition, it said:
Heh.
You do, indeed, get exactly what you pay for. You guys may remember that my interest in the competition stemmed from my search, about 8 months ago or so, for a site that would let us do this.
The only one I could find was VSE. Actually, that’s not true; I found another first, that was even worse (if you can imagine!). VSE was the better choice.
Maybe things will shake out, but I doubt it.
I will do some more checking at marketplayer.com. pantom, can you check the article for others?
I will post rankings tomorrow, once they have updated (if they ever do!).
First of all, thanks for the competition anyway, sdimbert. And no, all the other sites mentioned don’t appear to have a private competitions feature.
For the record, they are:
cnnfn.com
marketocracy.com
etrade.com
investorscup.com
vsmarket.com
Some of you may be interested in some of these sites, as they offer cash prizes to winners. Marketocracy has the most interesting payoff: if they like you, they’ll put you in charge of a mutual fund. No kidding.
Almost beats bragging rights on the SDMB.
Almost.
Uh, SD?
You O.K. buddy? Or have you cracked under the pressure?