ASX Game: Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a concern?

[NickF]

Hi All,
I recently joined the ASX Game and started trading late February. I am doing pretty bad, I am toward the end of the list (while most people made at least $100, I lost about $100). Now, the thing, there are some people in the top 100 who already made over $3000-$4000 in the game, and that is in less than 3 weeks. Even this is just a game, some people appear to remain consistently in top 100, so it is not just pure luck they got there. The advice from ASX is to invest in sound companies and look for dividends. While this may be probably an excellent advice for novice investors, most likely none of the top 100 players applied only this single strategy. I believe they have a strategy, based on a set of conditions or something like that. I found out on my own skin two conditions which somebody must NOT do - don't buy low values - I started buying just $2000 worth of shares and I soon found that amount is too low - the broking fee eats too much from the expected profit. Second condition is - do not select a list of stocks, put them on the buy list and forget them there. At the moment the market is rising and I have virtually no chance to buy the stocks at the buy price I set. I'd appreciate to hear from people who are playing the game and they are in top 100 (even if that happened for only a few days) what they are looking for. I am trying to see if there is any consistent correlation between buying under the lower Bollinger band, etc. I am afraid that if I apply this strategy, to select multiple stocks and place a buy order when the price gets under the lower Bollinger band, I will lose all the companies that go up and I will be left with the ones that may not perform so well. Should I rather buy a company that reaches the top Bollinger band the previous day? Or one that reaches a new high price in the last x days or y months? Are there any indicators that are even relevant?

Thanks,
Nick

 

[qldfrog]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

if it was that easy
I suggest you look at fundamental vs technical analysis.
look at what domain you wish to tackle then read and read among the posts there
a wealth of information with teh proper search
hope it helps

 

[darkhorse70]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

I rekon most of the guys who are at the top in that game have high risk portfolios. Just look at the daily swings of their accounts. One day are up a few thousand then when the market does bad they are down a few thousand. These guys play every game. If they were real pros they wouldnt waste their time on a game so they could win 3k. I bet they dont use the same strategy in the real worl. Just my opinion.

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

I rekon most of the guys who are at the top in that game have high risk portfolios. Just look at the daily swings of their accounts. One day are up a few thousand then when the market does bad they are down a few thousand. These guys play every game. If they were real pros they wouldnt waste their time on a game so they could win 3k. I bet they dont use the same strategy in the real worl. Just my opinion.

Hi DarkHorse,

I agree with you on the high risk portfolios. If you look for a high profit, you have to select higher risk companies. And for the game, where the incentive is that you are come on first place or you don't win anything, this is the correct approach. About the second part, I am not sure their position in the list will vary that widely. I would dare to speculate that the winner will probably one of the players who are now in top 200. I don't think there are no pros playing the game. Anybody can test their theories and the game provides some good platform for testing. Of course the game takes time to research so it's understandable a high income earner may not be interested in the prize vs time spent researching high risk companies. For example, I don't play for the prize (although I am not a high income earner), rather I try to see if I have a chance of making some virtual money.

Nick

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

if it was that easy
I suggest you look at fundamental vs technical analysis.
look at what domain you wish to tackle then read and read among the posts there
a wealth of information with teh proper search
hope it helps

Hi Qldfrog.

Thanks for the advice. So, I should do some reading before getting rich on the share market...
Good things come to those who wait

Nick

 

[darkhorse70]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

I agree that most likely one of the winners will be in tje top 200 but ive seen people been blown away from that list never to be seen again. The fact is, I dont know if the trading strategy they are using is sustainable. This is the 2nd time im playing the game. I was in the top 300 last week but after realising that the competition was negatively effecting my account (pressure to prove something) I am no longer watching the score board. Im playing consevatively now and am just testing myself. Anyway good luck in the game. Also if you look at the winners startegy, where they explain it at the end, it sounds like they are mostly guessing loll.

 

[snsdmonkey]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

I've been playing as well and running a portfolio as I would in normal life. My big winner right now is TGR, and my big loser in RIO, obviously I have a stop on it though. I'm about $400 up right now and the basis of my strategy is to just pick stocks which are consistently outperforming the ASX right now and have a nice chart as well for me to move in to.

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

I've been playing as well and running a portfolio as I would in normal life. My big winner right now is TGR, and my big loser in RIO, obviously I have a stop on it though. I'm about $400 up right now and the basis of my strategy is to just pick stocks which are consistently outperforming the ASX right now and have a nice chart as well for me to move in to.

Hi snsdmonkey,

Thanks for sharing. Your strategy is simple to understand, simple to apply and it's worth checking if it's good. Probably it's better than my charting attempts. RIO looks tempting for me at this moment,it went below the lower Bollinger Band. If I buy it now, at least I would lose less than you
I am trying to make an automated program that would place the buy/sell in the game without my input (I've already done that bit). I was trying to make a gain of 5% as quickly as possible, then sell and buy something else. The theory does not sound too bad to me, but I have problems to find the stocks that will increase shortly (this one minor detail is what prevents me earning virtual money )

Nick

 

[snsdmonkey]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Stopped out of RIO, with the way the overall market is going ie. pullback, probably best to sit on cash atm lol

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Stopped out of RIO, with the way the overall market is going ie. pullback, probably best to sit on cash atm lol

Hehe, I just bought RIO. It came up on my list, together with a few more. I spent today all my remaining funds (about $30000) on six stocks. I now have in my portfolio FMG, AMC, BHP, ASL, MRM, CLH, WTF, DLX. So far I managed to sell for about 4%-5% profit BKN and SLR. As of now I have a portfolio worth about $49800, which is pretty much the market average of yesterday. So, whoever wants to be average, follow me!

Nick

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hehe, I just bought RIO. It came up on my list, together with a few more. I spent today all my remaining funds (about $30000) on six stocks. I now have in my portfolio FMG, AMC, BHP, ASL, MRM, CLH, WTF, DLX. So far I managed to sell for about 4%-5% profit BKN and SLR. As of now I have a portfolio worth about $49800, which is pretty much the market average of yesterday. So, whoever wants to be average, follow me!

Nick

Hm, today (14/03/2014) it's been a bad day for my stock. While yesterday my portfolio raised to an all time high (for me) of $50600, today I lost all that $600, so I'm left with $49988. I wonder if the top players managed to avoid the bad day today. At least I purchased a few more shares. I made a few mistakes because I had a long list of shares to purchase and when the prices dropped, it started getting bits and pieces of various stocks. I had to cancel them and I haven't noticed I also cancelled orders that were incomplete. I also didn't realise that $40 represents 1% of a $4000 transaction. Definitely need to transact more than $4000 at a time in the future.

Nick

 

[Skraze]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hey I'm playing the ASX game as well, at the beginning I was able to get to around $53,000ish, but past 4-5 days haven't been so good, back to about +1% in overall returns to this date. I was meaning to sell some shares that I bought just for the sake of not wasting dividends but haven't been bothered to be honest.

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hey I'm playing the ASX game as well, at the beginning I was able to get to around $53,000ish, but past 4-5 days haven't been so good, back to about +1% in overall returns to this date. I was meaning to sell some shares that I bought just for the sake of not wasting dividends but haven't been bothered to be honest.

Hi Skraze, that was a good figure, you were probably in the top 100 some of the days. I sometimes saved the ranking list. Could you disclose your name in the game? Loosing interest in the game may lead to different results, not necessarily worse than when trading, if the market raises...
What info do you rely on when you make your purchases? Charts, fundamental data, news, recommendations from experts?
At the moment I completely disregard the fundamental data (PE Ratios, etc). I buy stocks that are affected by large drops, but I start thinking I should prefer the stocks with a positive trend, rather than falling ones. If I can't sell within a few days, I think it is more likely that a stock that falls may go lower. Found the book of Victor Niederhoffer online (I should buy it), I started reading it and I find it interesting and it challenges a lot of the "rules" many take for granted (including my mentioned "trend is your friend" ) and advises testing the theories one has using statistical methods, to see if they have any relevance or even may have to be avoided.

Nick

 

[Skraze]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hi Skraze, that was a good figure, you were probably in the top 100 some of the days. I sometimes saved the ranking list. Could you disclose your name in the game? Loosing interest in the game may lead to different results, not necessarily worse than when trading, if the market raises...
What info do you rely on when you make your purchases? Charts, fundamental data, news, recommendations from experts?
At the moment I completely disregard the fundamental data (PE Ratios, etc). I buy stocks that are affected by large drops, but I start thinking I should prefer the stocks with a positive trend, rather than falling ones. If I can't sell within a few days, I think it is more likely that a stock that falls may go lower. Found the book of Victor Niederhoffer online (I should buy it), I started reading it and I find it interesting and it challenges a lot of the "rules" many take for granted (including my mentioned "trend is your friend" ) and advises testing the theories one has using statistical methods, to see if they have any relevance or even may have to be avoided.

Nick

In the game my name is Skraze as well . I'm logging it through a google finance portfolio cause it just helps me understand better on a day to day basis and what overall return is on the portfolio to date. At the highest it was 3.7% plus I had $200 in dividends, so I would've been more around $52,050 if I was on the rankings.
I've only been using fundamental analysis since I just started looking into the stock market at the beginning of the year and the first book I read was the Intelligent Investor. So my whole portfolio is basically cheap companies, low p/e ratios with consideration to the sector of business and also low p/b ratios, but I've also been looking at return on investments, equity and assets as well. Also I don't like diversification haha, rather invest in 4 stocks in the game, but dividends made me invest in 5.
How long have you been investing?

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

In the game my name is Skraze as well . I'm logging it through a google finance portfolio cause it just helps me understand better on a day to day basis and what overall return is on the portfolio to date. At the highest it was 3.7% plus I had $200 in dividends, so I would've been more around $52,050 if I was on the rankings.
I've only been using fundamental analysis since I just started looking into the stock market at the beginning of the year and the first book I read was the Intelligent Investor. So my whole portfolio is basically cheap companies, low p/e ratios with consideration to the sector of business and also low p/b ratios, but I've also been looking at return on investments, equity and assets as well. Also I don't like diversification haha, rather invest in 4 stocks in the game, but dividends made me invest in 5.
How long have you been investing?

Hi Skraze,
I first heard of the share market around year 2000 (can't remember if before or after), when my former boss and two of his friends were doing some trading. At that time the share market was really crazy, some shares were going up a lot, there were a lot of splits happening. They were winning one day and losing the next day. I checked the charts and I was trying to figure out if they tell me anything. I've done some trading (investing only about $1000 at a time) and I did not make much and I did not lose much. The most successful transaction I remember was when I bough some small stock based on my observation that the price and volume went both up in the last three days. I bought them, hoping to sell at the end of the day. I could not sell them that day (was on a Friday) and I had to wait until Monday. On Monday the price increased about 40%, so I made about $400. Then I've done some more trades (on Telstra), trying to use Stop-Loss points and in about two or three days I bought high and sold low. That taught me a lesson, not to gamble on the share market so I was quiet for many years. The last trade I had was in 2008 when I decided to buy CBA at some time after the GFC. There was a period when the price on CBA went up and up and up and I thougth the GFC is over and the prices will quickly bounce back toward their original price. It happened what is called a fools rally. After I purchased, worth of about $8000, the price sank. I think I purchased on 23-Jul-2008 and I wanted to sell in one day (I was obvioustly trying to speculate). I thought that I will be safe buying in CBA, that even if the price will drop, if I wait long enough (=becoming an investor ), the price will reach again the price where I purchased and in the meantime I would also get some dividends. It didn't happen soon enough and I was under some pressure about the bad investment from my wife. I felt bad watching how the price went lower and lower and I abandoned rational thinking and I sold close to the absolute minimum that CBA had that period. What is worse is that I didn't even use what I learnt until that day (if it goes too high, too fast, do not buy it). I lost about $3500 or so. I learned that I don't have the knowledge and the emotional discipline to trade. About 10 years ago I started writing a program that allows me to see the charts very fast and also do simulations based on 14 years of history (what if I always buy when condition s x, y, z are met and sell when I reach k percent or after d days,whichever comes first). I haven't finished the program, but I am getting close to getting some good information out of it, that proves that many strategies do not work. I just start reading the book of Victor Neitherhoffer (Practical Speculation) and it makes me believe I am on the right path - at least the software may prevent me from getting into bad investments. The advantage is that I will be able to test some theories in minutes/or days and have a result indicating a net profit/loss if I had followed that strategy for whatever amount of time. Probably many others made such software already, I haven't read much about it. Hopefully in the next game, my computer will do all the transactions automatically for me and if that will happen, I am sure I won't be on the last place.
So, if I will start investing in the real world, it will only be if the software tells me there is a statistical chance high enough to worth the risk and I will probably let the computer do the thinking.
Not sure if I will ever get there, but hey, at least it it helps me improving my programming skills

Cheers,
Nick

 

[snsdmonkey]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hm, today (14/03/2014) it's been a bad day for my stock. While yesterday my portfolio raised to an all time high (for me) of $50600, today I lost all that $600, so I'm left with $49988. I wonder if the top players managed to avoid the bad day today. At least I purchased a few more shares. I made a few mistakes because I had a long list of shares to purchase and when the prices dropped, it started getting bits and pieces of various stocks. I had to cancel them and I haven't noticed I also cancelled orders that were incomplete. I also didn't realise that $40 represents 1% of a $4000 transaction. Definitely need to transact more than $4000 at a time in the future.

Nick

I usually like to add 10k positions if not more. Hence, I only sit on a position in 4-5 stocks at any one time, if that.

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

I usually like to add 10k positions if not more. Hence, I only sit on a position in 4-5 stocks at any one time, if that.

Hi Snsdmonkey,
The advice is pretty good. I start doing the same lately and now I have in the game $50728 (20-Mar-14). Is not that much, yesterday I had $50887 and that gave me a ranking of 852 out of 9150. I didn't expect this game to so popular (and so many people to be on red). Another lesson - despite today making two good transactions today (on one I bought and sold for 3% in 2 hours, and the other increased 1.87% by the end of the day), overall I lost because of some bad stocks in my portfolio. Probably I should sell those ones, they are dragging my account down. If I reach something like $50900, I should sell everything I have at the moment and start again with a fresh selection

Nick

 

[NickF]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hey I'm playing the ASX game as well, at the beginning I was able to get to around $53,000ish, but past 4-5 days haven't been so good, back to about +1% in overall returns to this date. I was meaning to sell some shares that I bought just for the sake of not wasting dividends but haven't been bothered to be honest.

Hi Skraze, did you continue playing? What's your account now? I got today to my personal record of $51193. Yesterday I was on ranking 404 out of 9291. Two days ago my ranking was 852 of 9150. By this rule, on Monday I should get in top 200 and on Tuesday, on top 100

Nick

 

[cudderbean]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hi Skraze,
The last trade I had was in 2008 when I decided to buy CBA at some time after the GFC. There was a period when the price on CBA went up and up and up and I thougth the GFC is over and the prices will quickly bounce back toward their original price. It happened what is called a fools rally. After I purchased, worth of about $8000, the price sank. I think I purchased on 23-Jul-2008 and I wanted to sell in one day (I was obvioustly trying to speculate). I thought that I will be safe buying in CBA, that even if the price will drop, if I wait long enough (=becoming an investor ), the price will reach again the price where I purchased and in the meantime I would also get some dividends. It didn't happen soon enough and I was under some pressure about the bad investment from my wife. I felt bad watching how the price went lower and lower and I abandoned rational thinking and I sold close to the absolute minimum that CBA had that period....
About 10 years ago I started writing a program that allows me to see the charts very fast and also do simulations based on 14 years of history (what if I always buy when condition s x, y, z are met and sell when I reach k percent or after d days,whichever comes first). I haven't finished the program, but I am getting close to getting some good information out of it, that proves that many strategies do not work.
Nick

Gday Nick,

Thank you for sharing your experiences so honestly with us.

A strategy that many punters use is exit if the close is above the upper Bol Band and RSI (14 day)is > or near 70% ....not the Holy Grail of course (there isn’t one) but it would have given you pause to think twice about entering CBA on such a high. Of course many times a stock will just catch its breath at such a high and continue soon after. Never mind if you miss it ... there will be plenty of other opportunities every day to get in at the start of a trend.

Another warning sign is if Big White candlesticks and range/ATR get well above *2...tighten your Stop Loss if you are already on board.

I admire your coding skill, but no point in reinventing the wheel. For a few hundred dollars purchase Tradesim (or trial it very cheaply), which works perfectly with Bullcharts and other software to backtest any theory you like. If you are able to write the indicator in BC or use one of the many preset ones, it’s a cinch to backtest it in seconds over many years and hundreds of stocks using Tradesim.

If you do backtest a system be careful of past post betting...using “if it CLOSES above x...” and assume you would obviously have been on board that stock earlier in the day. You don’t know where the close will be. The Big White Candlestick of the morning could end up being a Shooting star or worse in the afternoon. You’d have to realistically test a system by writing ..enter at High,Close today, or Open next day.

I incorporate any successful indicators into Excel to automate my live scanning, then most important of all eyeball the weekly, daily, and one minute charts of the codes it throws up.

Good luck, mate.

 

[Skraze]

Re: The ASX Game - Successful strategies for very short term, when risk is not a conc

Hi Skraze, did you continue playing? What's your account now? I got today to my personal record of $51193. Yesterday I was on ranking 404 out of 9291. Two days ago my ranking was 852 of 9150. By this rule, on Monday I should get in top 200 and on Tuesday, on top 100

Nick

Nicee, I broke even for a while in the last couple of weeks, and then went negative for a little while. I'm going okay now at 50,900, ranked 1434 though. I'm doing another portfolio comp for uni, I was trying to use a different kind of strategy in the first practice round I came like bottom 50 haha.
How you going now?