All the best traders probably didn't waste their time to enter since it could be better spent making them more millions.
Yet Williams has already bested thousands of financial professionals who entered the contest with Ivy League degrees and complex trading models. "Part of this was luck," she says. "A lot of it was a gut feeling, some eenie-meenie-minie-moe, and common sense." Williams and her husband, Mark, entered the contest at the urging of his mother ................. Mark, who holds a degree in archaeology from the University of Arizona, is a cook at a nearby Denny's (DENN). Proof enough of the colossal inanity of a conventional college education. With the correct online setup and access, one can get the meat of a 4 year education in 1 year. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
It's a nice story, but I really don't think it means anything. If you get enough people together and have them randomly pick stocks some of them are going to out preform the pros. In this sense it's much like a lottery. The best way to try and win a contest like this would just be to take a huge position in a random stock. It's not real money so there's no risk control needed, and the time frame is fairly short. Very different from the real thing.
Correct. You put a thousand monkeys in a room with an IB account and keyboards, and at least one of them is going to retire with a gazillion bananas. Trading contests with thousands of entrants are a matter of luck, not of skill.
So you agree that all those analysts and "pro" traders who took part in the competition are no better than monkeys.
Besides, it was a "paper trading, short-term" contest. For a contest to be valid it needs to have.. A. REAL money B. Enough real money that if you lose big, you suffer big C. At least 1 year So, let's see a year-long contest where you trade "All Of Your Mother's Money"...
What a pity I'm not an american citizen - I would have "bought" 100M of some $0.01 stock hoping it goes to $0.10 - much better chance than in a lottery ...