[Brainstorming...] New Challenge Idea

Hey folks!

So, as I had a little free time this afternoon I was thinking up a new challenge idea for the community here. Let me know what y'alls think of this one!

I was thinking of creating a weekly or a monthly challenge where participants would pick out 5 stocks for the week or month. I was thinking of making this like managing a stock portfolio. The same rules as we have for our normal stock picking challenges would apply for this new challenge as far as when picks would open (first day of the new trading week or month), with participants allowed to close out their picks at any time during the trading week.

Anyway, here is a sample spreadsheet that I created (similar looking as the daily spreadsheets, was a little lazy creating a new setup for now)

I created 2 other sample members in this particular example as well (@stock1234, and @tbw875).



Then, I have another sheet where it will display your total returns from all 5 of your stock picks. And you can see at a glance who is leading for the week or month as seen here-



This obviously still has a lot more work. But, this is just in the brainstorming stage for now.

Let me know what you guys think of this new challenge idea. If you have any questions or if this doesn't make any sense feel free to shoot away!

EDIT: In this example I used 5 stocks, but obviously we can change this to any # if needed.

 

@tbw875 - hmm ... that sounds interesting! i'll have to see if i can run something like that on google sheets. it's a nice idea.

@stock1234 - i wish you all the best with your move! thanks for that heads up! will really miss you around here. take all the time you need.

thx for the input! so basically this new challenge idea is largely just branching off our current contest formats, the only thing different in this new contest would be allowing members to make more picks than just the usual 2 picks. i know in the example that i used in the 1st post here i used 5 picks, but we can use any number of pick you guys wish to start out with. we can do something like 10 picks just to make it really fun and interesting.

but, yeah it's basically no different than our other challenge formats as far as how it works, etc. i didn't want to really deviate too much from those formats initially since everyone is pretty familiar with how the other challenges work so i just wanted to run something that gave people more picks to choose from.

and i agree with you that doing this on a monthly format makes sense to me. will be easier to run, and less work load generally speaking.

 

here is my sample spreadsheet that i'm currently working with right now if you guys would like to get an idea how this would kinda look.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f8XaCSa4CfQX1OW9xVPPaa3BXtjM9V7NGlX5tMU9teU/edit?usp=sharing

to see the individual members picks and how they're performing you click on the name tab at the bottom of the sheet.

in this spreadsheet example i'm using 8/7 as the starting point for picks.

haha, it's interesting you bring up the "playoffs" idea in here @stock1234! i too was thinking of this as well today.

i still have my spreadsheets from when we last trial ran that at the other place so it will be nice to have it already setup to go when we run it at the end of the year! i like it!

 

yeah that would be ideal @Jrich! but i'm afraid that might not be possible with the setup that i have with the spreadsheets i run. not that it isn't possible, but might put on quiet the work load.

that being said, are you guys familiar with the portfolio game on marketwatch?

i just happen to discover it this morning...in fact i went ahead and generated a new game there.

http://www.marketwatch.com/game/cy-mccaffrey-stock-contest <-- click there

i was going to pick the advanced level for this contest but i went ahead used normal for the trial run this week.

starting date is on monday (8/14) with end date (8/18) so essentially just a weekly contest.

just testing this one out this week to see how it all works.

looks interesting.

 

actually, disregard that link in the above post ... let's use this one instead-
http://www.marketwatch.com/game/the-stock-market-forums-stock-challenge

i've set it so anyone can join even after the challenge starts on this coming monday ... in addition i'm letting it run all the way to the end of the year.

i also noticed google already went ahead and conveniently indexed that page onto its search engine lol

 

so i'm thinking of running both the "normal game", and the "advanced game" just to see what it's like

EDIT: here is the link for the advanced game -> http://www.marketwatch.com/game/the-stock-market-forums-stock-challenge-advanced

here is a brief description for each:





the only thing that sucks is that this requires people to register a username on marketwatch.com to join the game ... kind of a hassle there i suppose ... but still looks interesting imo

 

haha. what's weird is it wouldn't allow me edit the commission rate or any of the other settings when i was setting up the advanced game ... but i just went to create another new advanced game now just to make sure and i see it now allows me to change the settings for the challenge...strange.

let's go ahead and use this link instead -> http://www.marketwatch.com/game/the-stock-market-forums-stock-challenge-advanced

sorry about that!

hope we can get some good participation out of this in here ... i wonder if i could also post the link on one of the subreddits as well. only thing is the game title says "the stock market forums" might have some people thinking i am spamming up the sub for the traffic. =/

 

i suppose it would help if i added the link to this newly added portfolio challenge at the top on the navigation bar here

looks like we've got 3 participants in so far ... but it's okay if people don't join before tomorrow's open because i've set it to allow anyone to join up at any time from now until year end

 

so, how are you guys liking that new portfolio challenge on marketwatch? i guess it would also help if i created a new thread for it that way we can get others participating in there as well.

 

hmm ... so it seems to me like the portfolio contest hasn't really gained much traction on here as of yet, i'll keep running that in the background for now, however i'm also thinking of adding that original challenge idea that i had in here, which was having members picking out 10 stocks and seeing who can come out on top in a monthly format.

basically, the same rules would apply as our normal monthly contests, however in this contest members would be making 10 picks rather than just 2 like I have in the normal monthly contest.

while that portfolio game on marketwatch is a good one imo ... it's not very engaging if you will ... as it requires people to click in to another site to play. in addition - members picks(trades) are not very easily visible/accessible as it requires a few clicks until you can see who is trading what, etc. not very user friendly. although i know the folks over at marketwatch are working on coming out with a new and improved version soon.

this 10-pick monthly contest will be nice as it will have members more engaged into the forums here if you will, and everyone can see who makes what picks.

in the meantime, i'll keep that portfolio game open/running until year end, but i'm not too sure if i'll be putting in too much emphasis on it until i see others finding more interest in it.

anyway, look for the new 10-pick monthly challenge thread for next month soon!

 

been doing some more brainstorming over this weekend and have thought up yet another idea to really spice things up in here -- team competitions!

more on this to come later in the week...

 

Just to expand on this idea of mine a bit more here - so I was thinking of running a weekly (or monthly?) competition where there would be teams of 2 participants each.

Since we're a very small community here, and only have about 5 or 6 regular participants of our stock picking challenges we probably can only manage 3 teams in total.

So, as aforementioned each team would have 2 members each (I'm not entirely sure how I will go about selecting who goes to which team. I'm still in the process of brainstorming that one...). But, I would have each member picking out 2 stock picks. So there would be 4 picks for each team per week/month or whatever format we decide on. The same contest rules as our normal picking competitions would apply for this new challenge as well. Think of this as any normal contest, but in this case you will have a teammate picking out stock picks as well, and not just picking them out solo. Does this make any sense for you guys?

The general idea here is to make this a lot more interactive and fun for everyone!

Let me know what you guys think!

Again this is still in the brainstorming stage for now, but I think I'm getting closer to putting this together soon.