Stock market game offers expert tips

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#1
Be careful of "games" involving the stock market! Most, if not all, don't teach the proper ways of investment. The first rule I learnt is - don't follow gurus, trust yourself and your own analysis! Tongue

The Straits Times
www.straitstimes.com
Published on Nov 15, 2012
Stock market game offers expert tips


A NEW mobile stock market game developed in Singapore aims to piggyback on the expertise of successful investors.

The soon-to-be-launched game, called Trade Hero, with access to 14 stock markets around the globe including Singapore, operates a bit like Twitter.

"Trade heroes", or expert investors, attract followers keen to replicate their success by mimicking their investment strategy.

Co-founder Dinesh Bhatia said: "Successful investors usually trade in companies they have followed for a while. They've developed insights about these companies, and done their research. So when they buy stocks, they're likely to make money.

"If we follow them, picking up tips from their blogs or tweets, our chance of being successful trading in the same stocks also increases."

Trade heroes get half of the US$1.99 (S$2.40) monthly subscriptions that followers pay.

The more successful the trade heroes, the more followers they will have and the higher their share of the subscriptions.

The game will rank trade heroes by their successes, which can be sorted by exchange, industry, quarterly or monthly returns.

Followers choose whom they want to follow, and pay US$1.99 a month to follow each expert.

They may switch only at month's end. Their trade hero's real-time trading information will be sent to their smartphones.

Trade heroes and followers can be anywhere in the world.

Initially, the experts will have to prove their worth. When they sign up, each will get $100,000 in virtual currency to create their own stock portfolio. They can place virtual trades on any of the companies listed on the 14 stock exchanges.

"We want to make investing simple for the man on the street who's only interested in making money. And for the trade hero, he may be a part-time investor who knows one company very well. Now he can 'monetise' his expertise. This wasn't possible previously," said Mr Bhatia.

There are no live stock transactions on the site. Investors have to call their brokers or go online to do this.

"We want to increase trading volume, which will benefit anyone. We're creating a new business model, we're not going to take away business from any bank or brokerage."

Co-founder Dominic Morris said the biggest challenge had been to get live feeds from the stock exchanges.

"But we've managed to do that now and we'll be adding more exchanges next year," said Mr Morris, a specialist in online banking who has worked for banks such as Standard Chartered.

Trade Hero was founded about 18 months ago. Recently, it closed its seed funding round when TNF Ventures invested $600,000.

Mr Bhatia was a pioneer dot.com entrepreneur about 15 years ago. Among the firms he founded was EdgeMatrix, which produced Wapman, a microbrowser for personal digital assistants (PDAs). However, the company was a victim of the dot.com bust.

He made headlines again in 2004, when he was caught for consuming cocaine, and was jailed for eight months.

In the last few years, he lived in the United States and invested in stocks and shares. It was his loss of about US$300,000 when he invested in Palm, the maker of PDAs and smartphones, that led him to the idea for Trade Hero.

"I believed in the company. It had good technology but was slow and was overtaken by other companies. If I'd known that it would be slow in executing its strategy, I might not have invested in it at all."

Trade Hero's app for the Apple iPhone and iPad is expected to be available soon. Android and Windows 8 versions will follow next year. Those interested can visit http://tradehero.mobi

GRACE CHNG
My Value Investing Blog: http://sgmusicwhiz.blogspot.com/
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#2
The platform, if successful, will only cultivate exponential speculative behaviour during bullish times.

It has the potential for big institutional investors to kill off the small retail ignorant ones after luring them in well and fed.

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#3
What stock to buy is just one aspect of a trade. How much of your portfolio to buy is a big question which is usually not revealed. Without that information, your return will be different from your trade hero. For example, if he puts in 20% while you put 2% of your portfolio in a stock, the returns as a percentage of total portfolio is going to be totally different.

Anyway, I think we have a lot of trade heroes here in the forum Smile
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#4
(16-11-2012, 10:30 AM)Spidey Wrote: What stock to buy is just one aspect of a trade. How much of your portfolio to buy is a big question which is usually not revealed. Without that information, your return will be different from your trade hero. For example, if he puts in 20% while you put 2% of your portfolio in a stock, the returns as a percentage of total portfolio is going to be totally different.

Anyway, I think we have a lot of trade heroes here in the forum Smile

Trade hero?

I saw more trade (risk averse) conservatives here than trade (risk seeking) heroes Tongue
“夏则资皮,冬则资纱,旱则资船,水则资车” - 范蠡
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#5
(16-11-2012, 10:45 AM)CityFarmer Wrote:
(16-11-2012, 10:30 AM)Spidey Wrote: What stock to buy is just one aspect of a trade. How much of your portfolio to buy is a big question which is usually not revealed. Without that information, your return will be different from your trade hero. For example, if he puts in 20% while you put 2% of your portfolio in a stock, the returns as a percentage of total portfolio is going to be totally different.

Anyway, I think we have a lot of trade heroes here in the forum Smile

Trade hero?

I saw more trade conservatives here than trade (risk seeking) heroes Tongue

Just wondering will this be interpreted as "acting in concert" and "cornering the market"?

There is probably nothing wrong in following successful trades, just thinking if this will be a grey area.
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#6
(16-11-2012, 11:17 AM)guru Wrote:
(16-11-2012, 10:45 AM)CityFarmer Wrote:
(16-11-2012, 10:30 AM)Spidey Wrote: What stock to buy is just one aspect of a trade. How much of your portfolio to buy is a big question which is usually not revealed. Without that information, your return will be different from your trade hero. For example, if he puts in 20% while you put 2% of your portfolio in a stock, the returns as a percentage of total portfolio is going to be totally different.

Anyway, I think we have a lot of trade heroes here in the forum Smile

Trade hero?

I saw more trade conservatives here than trade (risk seeking) heroes Tongue

Just wondering will this be interpreted as "acting in concert" and "cornering the market"?

There is probably nothing wrong in following successful trades, just thinking if this will be a grey area.

Definition of Acting in Concert:
Persons acting in concert comprise individuals or companies who, pursuant to an agreement or understanding (whether formal or informal), cooperate, through the acquisition by any of them of shares in a company, to obtain or consolidate effective control of that company.
“夏则资皮,冬则资纱,旱则资船,水则资车” - 范蠡
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#7
I won't call any of the regulars here "gurus" or "trade heroes". In fact, I think they can more likely be known as "investing and valuation experts".

That said, I'll still rely on my own research to verify the facts and numbers before I take any action(s).
My Value Investing Blog: http://sgmusicwhiz.blogspot.com/
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#8
(16-11-2012, 12:03 PM)Musicwhiz Wrote: I won't call any of the regulars here "gurus" or "trade heroes". In fact, I think they can more likely be known as "investing and valuation experts".

That said, I'll still rely on my own research to verify the facts and numbers before I take any action(s).

"trade heroes" is misleading. Hero is more like a high-risk-high-gain taker

Musicwhiz calling is more reasonable to me, but isn't a bit too long? Big Grin
“夏则资皮,冬则资纱,旱则资船,水则资车” - 范蠡
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#9
Wow. Whoever came up with this business idea is a genius. I would very much prefer to put my money into this business than pay $2 for some "expert's" advice.

The business feeds on people's greed for easy money, and its monthly operating cost is essentially very low.

All you have to do is have 20,000 people signing up for this, and it would basically cover the operating cost.

20,000 sign ups = $10,000 revenue.

$10,000 - ($3,000 x 2) - $500 = $3500 profit
($3,000 x 2 is for 2 x employees) ($500 for server fee)

Marketing is basically free as the media loves such gimmicks.
There won't be a need to look for "trade gurus" as there will be ample supply of trade gundus (oops. I meant guru). I mean which "trade guru" will not want the easy money. If given a chance, I won't mind being one of these "guru".

This business is virtually a money making machine.
www.joetojones.com - Helping the average Joe find the winning companies to invest in.
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#10
The only way to get indecent returns is to lie low and collect the undervalued stocks.
Telling the whole world what is your stock selection is not really sensible.
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