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Show HN: An investment forum where everyone manages a $1M imaginary portfolio

longtermboard.com

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Re: Show HN: An investment forum where everyone manages a $1M imaginary portfolio

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did check my spam folder and it didn't get any messages. But now, the third email got instantly delivered, into the spam folder (hosted by Fastmail), and I marked them as Not Junk. Some more question/feedback: - Is it a design decision that the commissions are high? I got 13 cents per share (on a stock priced at 49.89). I would expect more like 0.35 cents per share. I suppose that is forcing more long-term holding.…

Firebase is annoying damn. Will figure it out. (1) yes high commissions are designed to promote long term holdings (hence the name of the platform). I’m still trying to figure out simulated taxes. (2) hmm, do you mind elaborating? For me, it’s not an exact replica of my personal portfolio, but moving forward it should be a relatively good proxy to it. (3) I think the commissions itself will eliminate profits from min…

(1) It would be hilarious if you included state taxes based on IP.

I think having no taxes would be a decent decision -- it could be an IRA.

(2) This is just a basic paper trading vs. real money difference in behavior -- TWTR at 49.94 will probably jump 8.4% in a week, so I went all in -- also, the presence of a leaderboard would reward more high variance decision-making. But what can you do.

Re: Show HN: An investment forum where everyone manages a $1M imaginary portfolio

#23

How do you prevent people from opening a ton of accounts with different risky positions, abandoning the ones that don’t work out, and claiming to be a genius on the ones that top the leaderboard six months later?

I thought about this a lot. Initially, I wanted phone authentication, but decided to do that next time when the problem arises. Then I realised that the goal of this is long term investing, I.e. 3-5-10 years. I doubt these “return miners” can do so over the long term while writing good insightful posts on their positions to build enough reputation to thrive on the platform.

But then again, it’s still possible to maintain two to three accounts running different strategies. And so moving forward, I’d either try phone auth or Stripe’s identity verification.

Re: Show HN: An investment forum where everyone manages a $1M imaginary portfolio

#24

How do you prevent people from opening a ton of accounts with different risky positions, abandoning the ones that don’t work out, and claiming to be a genius on the ones that top the leaderboard six months later?

I thought about this a lot. Initially, I wanted phone authentication, but decided to do that next time when the problem arises. Then I realised that the goal of this is long term investing, I.e. 3-5-10 years. I doubt these “return miners” can do so over the long term while writing good insightful posts on their positions to build enough reputation to thrive on the platform. But then again, it’s still possible to main…

Realistically if enough value exists a secondary-market selling "successful" accounts will crop up and anyone wanting to harvest leads on the forum will purchase one of those.

The site sounds cool but there are huge systemic problems with web based reputation systems. The reputation system can never be bullet proof, so maybe focus on other facets of the project IMO (unless your passion is the reputation system and fraud prevention).

Re: Show HN: An investment forum where everyone manages a $1M imaginary portfolio

#25

IMO a big thing these sort of simulators always lack is a notion of tax consequences, which is always a big factor in real decision making.

You’re right. Currently high frequency trades are penalised by commissions which has a fixed component. I’m still banging my head trying to figure out a simulated tax environment, but I’ll get it done. The goal is to make it as perfect as it can as an imperfect proxy to investor skill.

Long term =15% ish percent short = 30% easy and close enough to make it fairly representative
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