Has the loophole been fixed? Check the previous games on this forum where it is noted that in the game you could buy and sell without having to queue. When your number of shares were traded on the real market then your order was filled. Players could do multiple trades across the spread all day. Check 2014 thread on this forum.
Alright so I have been playing around with the orders today.
To see if it really is that easy to just make the market and sit on the bid ask spread.
MYR, Myer was sitting at 0.735 bid 0.74 ask for most of the day.
A high spread and low share price.
This was my choice to make market because spread was about 0.68% (.05/.735). IE buy at 0.735 and sell at 0.74.
Now most of the 205 stock/etfs in the universe do not even have enough spread to cover the commission for both buying and selling which is .2+.2= .4%
So firstly there is the commission which is .2% each way or $20 for orders under 10,000.
This puts you in a hard place. You need a spread of at least .4% and also have to trade with at least $10,000 out of your $50,000 capital to cover commissions. This also does not take into account the chance that the price could blow out either way.
Talk about picking up pennies in front of steam rollers
So here is the tick chart from Myer today that I have constructed from the course of sales.
Except for omitting the opening two trades which were distorted.
So it looks like a perfect day for market making the bid ask spread.
No major announcements or major moves, sideways all day. Looks easy.
I buy at the grey line and sell at the orange line.
aha but I actually need volume and I am sitting on $10,000 order.
no worries I am sitting on almost 14,000 odd shares should be enough for seeing that in the game I get to jump ahead of the queue.
aha but it gets even more complicated.
My lunch is getting cut into by asx centre-point orders. Other participants can put in orders that don't even appear on my depth of market??? What???
Yep and the orders are filled at the mid point of the bid ask spread.
If you draws some lines on the graph it begins to make much more sense.
See how may times it hit the yellow point and bounced back. That is the centre point halving the spread.
So in actual fact the spread of the mid point would be half of the full spread which is about 0.34%.
Not even enough to cover my commission and this is on one of the, if not highest spread stocks in the 205 universe.
For alot of the day I was sitting there like a lame duck, getting filled in small bits and pieces.Whilst also getting cut out fills by centre-point orders
In the end though strategy payed off. I made a grand total of $27.90
ahahah
In summary
1) It is not easy to just sit on the bid ask spread.There is still risk. You would have to know when to trade it to not get blown out by big moves. The spread is very thin especially after commissions.
2)It takes time, you have to sit there all day, ideally also making market in at least 5 stocks.
Pull the orders at end of day, at upcoming announcements, at big spikes, especially at the end of the week to avoid gaps.
3) It is not in the spirit of the game. The game is to learn about trading/investing, not market making by jumping the queue. But knowing what doesn't work is a good way of learning.
4) It may not be the best strategy to use to win the game. I think I was lucky today but any hit would wipe out the small gains made.
But yes it is an advantage to be at the front of the queue.
Still working on my longer term picks.
Cheers