I swallowed it, hook line and sink. It is real, he does have a structural edge. I think you too have it.
Sounds more like if anything he's talking about term structure. He probably adds 1 to the value and that's his edge
Thats a very good question,and I can promise you its not about leverage,and its not about term structure .Its a one week competition,you arent trading term structure and returning 50% in a week.... Fyi,I am not saying he doesnt have some sort of edge.D likes to use terms that sound really cool,and structural edge is one of them..I have a buddy who is a major "options broker" who does a massive business with the biggest and baddest option trader around.His edge is he can hedge almost anything,and in any size..Is that structural?? Lets leave it up to D ading in a
Here is an example: For the longest time fixed rate mortgages were expensive because home owners loved the certainty of fixed monthly payments and didn't mind paying a higher interest rate for the peace of mind. So, there was a positive structural bias built into mortgage back securities. If one could borrow short term and bought MBS he made money year in year out without risks, it was a structural edge. What was even more surprising, as interest rates dropped, many home owners didn't refinance making the structural edge even better.
The prize is too low and the way these guys trade it's basically 'gambling' no professional would trade like that okay. some of the 'players' were making 50% gains per day. and some guys hacked their system and saw numbers and returns that was was no realistic, the game if it's serious should have rules like limits on number of trades per day. it rare to see a human trade 300 round trips per day. your machine if you can trade 100 round trips per day. and your a vip trader with your broker if you can make a profit with 300 round trips per day. that is what HFT do. very few people trade like that. basically the contest is BULLSHIT okay waste of time, time is money. costing me money to participate in these BULLSHIT market and bullshit game Okay.
Can you post a screenshot of someone in the challenge that made +300 trades ? Those that made +300 trades...are any of them on the leader board ? I think the prize is low for two reasons...to minimize gambling and their are professionals in the challenge. In fact, that's why its called Trade Against a Pro Challenge because there's at least one in the challenge by the name of Bob Iaccino. Seriously, pretend the prize was 50k or 100k...a prize the CME Group can easily afford. There will be some serious gamblers showing up to compete in the challenge...similar to more people buying lottery tickets when the jackpot grows. In the trading challenges he's competed in...I have not seen him do more than 35 trades for the entire challenge. In fact, most of his trades tend to occur during the middle of the challenges. Also, I have not seen anyone in several Trade Against a Pro challenges do more than 300 trades in one trading day let alone per day (average) for the entire competition. I'm not saying its not possible...I'm saying I just have not seen such. Yeah, we all can suspect that someone smart out there has figure out a way to "hack" or "manipulate" the crappy trade execution platform. Yet, there's not proof of someone hacking the system because if there was...I think it would spread like wild fire and the CME Group will be discredited and possibly impact their stock price (minor like) let alone put into the question of their sponsorship at all those top finance universities competing in their University level challenges. Think about it, if someone has "hacked" into their platform...wouldn't that trader set it up to trade both the simulator challenge and their own real money account at the same time ? (I'm just continuing with the conspiracy theories). No challenge competition will be perfect for everyone. Traders will find an excuse to not compete if they feel they're at a disadvantage or they believe it will distract them from their real money trades. Yet, the trading on a 100k simulator account in my opinion is not realistic for the typical participant although the minority of Pro traders probably feel the 100k start point is OK. Then again, I don't think the CME Group is interested in realism considering the crappy trade execution platform they're using. The platform is the most common complaint I've seen so far thru several competitions. wrbtrader