Its actually a bit more restrictive than that..... You must have your orders in by 3:59 and there will be an official price settlement at 10m...That is the price which one will be long or short at for the following day... With that said,there have been some phenomenal returns posted in these contests..Supposedly last years winner did something like 400%..That implies taking out 3%+ per day,every day for 10 straight weeks... Personally,I am just tired of people spouting off astonomical returns and not posting a journal that can be "audited",or should I say verified.....
i think i found a link to the method the guy used. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38777
strategy to win the contest. this is from the last year contest. << One of my theories on these contests is that you can make it easy on yourself -- and do incredibly well -- by simply picking the 10 lowest-priced stocks that the contest allows, with absolutely no other criteria. I chose the following list screening the MSN database for stocks over $500 million and asking for Last Price "low as possible." >> http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P145834.asp?Printer
SO if I read this right....you buy APPL at 10 AM $80 a share....it goes up $10 and closes at the high. You are then long at $90 and it goes down the following day back to $80...and you actually lose $10????? And you cant sell short......... From the rules: Pricing of Trades: Trades submitted on trading days (Monday through Friday, other than market holidays) prior to 3:59:59 p.m. will be priced at the stockâs closing price for such day, as such closing price is reported to the Site by Wall Street On Demand, an independent data provider, at approximately 10:00 p.m. on such day. Trades submitted on weekends, market holidays and after 3:59:59 p.m. on trading days will be priced at the stockâs closing price for the next trading day. For purposes of this Contest, the closing price is the price reported to the Site by Wall Street On Demand at approximately 10:00 p.m. and reflects trades that settled after the markets closed, but does not reflect after-hours trading. The official time for all trades will be determined in accordance with CNBC.comâs internal clock, maintained at CNBCâs offices.
If i am not mistaken,I think this is what the rules are..Lets take AAPL.You decide at 3:00 today,you want to go long.You must place your order by 3:59,and you will be long as of the settlement price established at 10:00 p.m(same day),which is essentially todays close.Your example was 10:AM,which is not what the rules state. As an example,lets say APPL closes at 80 which is the same price as the 10:00pm settlement price..That is the price you will be long at.. Tommorow AAPL opens up $10 and trades at $90.You can not sell it intraday.It doesnt matter when you put your sell order in,as long as the order is in by 3:59,you will essentially be getting the close price for that day..The simple way to look at it is you are trading on "close only".... I think you may be suprised that you can generate decent returns without staring at the screen all day..take a shot,its free and you may walk away with $1,000,000
you probably should not "buy" it at 10 am. you can wait til 3:59 pm and decide at that point if you still want it.