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Strategies & Market Trends : The Player's Club -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HairBall who wrote (4184)	1/13/2000 3:21:00 PM
From: Bull RidaH	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 11513

Larry, Thanks for your question. Each participant here obviously thrives in the competition, and hopes to be "king of the hill" at least for a day. But the REAL purpose of the contest is to allow each trader to prove to THEMSELVES that they have developed the systems, strategies, & discipline it takes to viably trade the S&P futures markets with real money. The competition and public nature of this competition does not exactly duplicate the emotions and pressure involved in trading one's own hard-earned/easily inherited or investor-provided capital, but it is as close of a synthetic match as I can think of. Making correct market calls is fantastic, but they're worthless unless they can be combined with an effective strategy to take advantage of the accurate forecast. This contest allows participants the opportunity to find out how difficult the two are to merge. And it tells everyone who watches on S.I. which participants are progressing in development of their forecasting and strategic abilities. These contest results TALK, and bulls**t walks. I invited many of the well known prognosticators on S.I. to participate, but most refused... some possibly out of fear that their performance here would not fulfill the image or "guru status" that they feel they have earned. It's too bad, because everyone involved here has told me their understanding of who they are as a prognosticator and trader, along with the skills utilized in both, have grown in leaps and bounds. If a restarted contestant comes on and takes the lead, I think they ARE the leader, as they have overcome some pretty big handicaps. All the time they spent trying to move forward before the restart is gone, plus they lose 5 days of trading opportunity as they await restart, plus they suffer the agony of defeat each time they drop through the 40% drawdown limit. Ask anyone here who has crashed and burned, it doesn't fill good. <g> And what were the leaders doing during all that time...? Why didn't they pull away? I don't think you will really ever know who the "true leader" is, as one or two days can send worst to first, or first to worst. Just ask GZ & Soumen. Is the winner the one who was leading at the end of the contest? What would have happened had the contest been extended for a few more days, would that person still be the winner? You are correct in saying the contest encourages one to take big chances. We are all trying to push ourselves to the edge and still produce positive results over a long period of time. The one who can do this has mastered the world and universe. Are you ready? David