F13 Investment Challenge '08 - Ride The Lightning!

[Grand Design]

Remember 2007?  A time of champagne wishes and caviar dreams.  Our 401ks were fat and our kids were fatter.  The bling flowed freely.  Astronauts could still afford gasoline to roam the countryside in adult diapers, preying on younger, more attractive pilots.  The looming mortgage crisis was but a naysayer's whisper in the night.  F13's daytraders still had faith in the market and we played the F13 Investment Challenge.  But, yesteryear's market had none of the pulse-pounding, dollar-devaluing, rootin'-tootin' volatility of 2008!

So, let's do it again!

Since we tried VSE last time, I setup a game at Investopedia.  Nevermind, let's go with VSE.  There was some discussion about whether or not this simulator sucked, so if anyone has a better game post it before Monday.

Site: Virtual Stock Exchange
Game ID:  F132008Q4
Game Name: F13 Investment Challenge 08 - Ride The Lightning
Password: f13stocks

Starting Cash: $100,000

Game begins today and ends 12/31.  Winner is whomever has the greatest gains, or apocalypse allowing, smallest losses.

[schild]

So doing it this time.

[schild]

Or not, I keep getting an error trying to join after putting my password in.

Server Error in '/Game' Application.

[Grand Design]

Yeah, its extremely flaky - worse than last year.  If someone finds a better one, please post it.  I didn't go with Investopedia because it appeared to require personal invites (meh) and be limited to 10 players (bleh.)

[Phildo]

Is there a theme, or is it a free-for-all to see who loses the least?

[Grand Design]

There are some very undervalued stocks out there and it could go either way in the next two months.  If the market gets really dicey, we could always shoot the moon and see who can lose quickest.

[Viin]

I'm trying to decide if socking away the money under the bed or finding a low risk 1% gainer is the best way to come out on top ..

[Grand Design]

As expected, those who didn't invest in anything yet came out on top.  At one point, three of my four picks were up.   

[Broughden]

Game begins today and ends 12/31. 

Nothing like giving everyone a few days warning.

Is the site still broken or can you join now?

Edit- This game is dumb. You can only buy US stocks. Thats it from what I can tell. No playing treasury offerings, no ivesting in money markets or foreign currency (like the yen which is soaring right now) and no real investing in foreign markets. Its only US stocks, mutual funds and ETF's.

Well I have blown my $100k. I think I will hold what I have till the end and see where I end up.

[Phildo]

This game needs a smacktalking feature.

Edit: The stupid game won't let me invest in Fannie Mae or AIG because they're worth less than $2 per share.  Shenanigans!

[schild]

Ride the Lightning?

12,835 shares of Land America. I'll show you lightning.

[Broughden]

Six orders in since last night. SO far it has not executed a single one this morning. This is some pretty slow ass lightning. 

Just saw a quick headline that stated financial stocks were making gains this morning in trading. Sure wish it had executed my fucking buy orders!!!!!

[schild]

Yea, I am pretty fucking pissed that my order is just sitting there.

[lac]

My two orders executed when the market started this morning.

[schild]

My order ended up going through twice. LFG is basically in a nice freefall, as expected, and I look forward to owing virtual money to these virtual assholes.

[Lantyssa]

So, um, where's a good listing of the stock names?  I know some of the companies I want, but we used newpapers to look at that sort of thing the last time I tried.  All I've found so far are the larger averages, not individual stocks.

[lac]

If you type in the name of a large company in google it should give you the option to see the ticker and some stock info. If you type in the name of the company in the VSE 'make a trade' section of the game you should get the correct ticker too.
Here is the Yahoo Finance lookup tool for corp tickers.

[Lantyssa]

Thanks.  I fumbled through enough to get my initial picks.

[Draegan]

I'm in.

[Phildo]

As I thought, investing in banks and coal was foolish.  Who will be the biggest loser?

[Viin]

As I thought, investing in banks and coal was foolish.  Who will be the biggest loser?

Not me (right now)!

[Grimwell]

I'm in.

I just wish I had the real $$ to put in right now. It's a buyers market if you can sit for a while. Short term may not be so good, but before I retire it's got odds on being better.

[Phildo]

Schild is crushing us all!

[Samwise]

I'm in.  I know nothing at all about stocks or money, so I'm basically clicking buttons at random.  My goal will be to lose more money than Schild.

[Amarr HM]

I couldn't be arsed Googling stuff so I just put all my cash into Google.

[Grand Design]

Game begins today and ends 12/31. 

Nothing like giving everyone a few days warning.

In my defense, it was two days before the markets reopened.  I think last week was the second test of the market's bottom, so this is a good week to get in, hence the short warning. 

12,835 shares of Land America. I'll show you lightning.

Jesus, schild, today was the second largest single-day gain in the Dow's history, and you still lost money.

Yea, I am pretty fucking pissed that my order is just sitting there.

To mimic market conditions, trades are delayed like ten or fifteen minutes.  I'll see if I can change it to something shorter.

So, um, where's a good listing of the stock names?.

I'm no pro, but I like to go to Google News -> Business and read the headlines.  On the right are the stocks that have made news that day along with various stats.  I saw Google itself had good news today, so I grabbed some of it and, sure enough, it did pretty well.  This is called the 'Amarr Strategy':

I couldn't be arsed Googling stuff so I just put all my cash into Google.

[Broughden]

Fuck!

Had some money in a bear market fund. Should have dumped it at noon today when the market rallied. Had a high of 155 and then bottomed out around 120 or so.

Took all the gains I made in JPM and HUM down with it.

[Logik]

I couldn't be arsed Googling stuff so I just put all my cash into Google.

That was basically my strategy last year.  Unfortunately, I failed to take into account the stock tanking days after investment.

[nurtsi]

Wehee, I'm in as well.

[NiX]

I'm in and have no idea how to play the market. This should be fun!

[Phildo]

How is it possible that all four of my stocks have gone up... nonono!

[schild]

I'm good at this. I submit that most of you all are doing it wrong.

[Furiously]

I'm in!

[Amarr HM]

Don't you mean?

How is it possible that all four of my stocks have gone up... gogogo!

[nurtsi]

Okay, I'm new to this stuff and I don't understand why I lost money 

I go and buy 1000 shares of AHG for $20.99 per share. Next day, BG acquires AHG. So now I apparently have 1000 shares of BG that are only worth $9.02 and I lost a shitton of money. Is this how it is supposed to work?