Wade here goes
I would like to point out that although the contest is fun, it likely won't mimick very closely ones real net porfolio results if you trade a lot.
That is understood. It is just a contest. And yes it would resemble less of a person who trades a lot such as me for example. Then again how many people put their entire portfolio in 6 stocks, not too many, and probably that answer was generous, as most of us like more diversification then 6 stocks. As much as I love trades, it would be potentially impossible for me to do all the work of unlimited trades would cause. I have thought about it before, but it would simply just eat up too much of my time.
But then again we have made improvements in this contest.
We first started with no trades. And eventually worked our way up to 4 trades. Now we have 4 trades and unlimited freezes, which means you will never have an excuse to be stuck in a stock that you don't like anymore. So although it doesn't resemble the real world we have tried to improve the contest to bring it as close as possible within reason of course. We have also added that you can freeze a stock, essentially sell a stock and not costing a trade, and now you can wait until you find something you like. We have worked on increasing the options for each contestant, I'm not saying it is perfect, and I'm sure we will make some small improvements along the way in future VMC PSL Contests, but it certainly is a lot closer to reality then it was when we started the original VMC PSL Contest.
We have also answered the volume issue to a certain extent in VMC PSL 6, no one will be able to have stock that have less the $5,000 dollar/Volume, some may argue that is too low, and it should be more then that, other will argue, you shouldn't haven't dollar/volume restrictions, but we believe this will not limit many picks, and get the real problem stocks out of the equation for the most part.
Conclusion: VMC PSL Contests were never attended to mirror a person's portfolio, if they were the VMC PSL Lotto would first of all hold more then 6 stocks in the portfolio. What they were intended for (1) Give us (VMC) a fun time. (2) Give us a place to look for investing ideas (Found VII in the $3.50's off the last contest). I really think that was all they intended to be, plus another statistical reference to see how we are doing as a whole (Group). I hope this helps. All is just my opinion, and I could always be wrong though.
