Tag: virtual trading

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How to & Advice Latest Posts

TEST YOUR LIMITS: Discover How Competitions Can Give You an Edge

With the increasing number of competitions available to the public, newbie traders might be wondering whether or not joining a competition may offer significant advantages as opposed to sticking to virtual trade. With Investagrams, the platforms for virtual trade and competitions offer similar features. They both offer a way to trade with virtual cash while using real time data which simulates real time scenarios without the risk of losing capital. Obviously, competitions give you the chance to win prizes. But the advantages of joining competitions extend beyond monetary value. 

Thinking Long Term

The advantages you can get from joining competitions mostly revolve around your discipline as a trader. When joining a competition, you are encouraged to look beyond short term gains and onto sustainable growth. This forces you to protect your capital through proper position sizing and appropriate exits. Although you can do this through virtual trade, it is very easy to just reset your account or to lose interest in your virtual trade portfolio if you get a losing streak. It is important to note that competitions are marathons, not sprints because local competitions usually last for around 4 months. This means that no matter how much gains you get with one trade, if you can’t sustain this growth then you’ll most probably get overtaken by your competitors. 

Beating the Market

Competitions also encourage you to push yourself beyond merely being profitable to actually being more profitable than the rest of the market. Of course, there are ways to do this through virtual trading such as setting a monthly goal or using the index to track your performance. However, these goals are not as dynamic as directly comparing yourself to similar traders at the same level. Having the ability to compare your performance to other traders in real time will have you constantly searching for high probability trades instead of passively riding on trending stocks. 

Being Part of a Community

Aside from prizes and technical benefits, you also get a better sense of community. For example, Investagrams’ group feature offers a way for Trading Cup 2020 participants to share their learnings and insights throughout the whole competition. Because competitions let people have the same initial capital as well as the same restrictions on the number of trades per day and lock in periods, all participants effectively start on the same level which makes it easier for participants to relate to each other. Ideally, this behaviour will spillover to the whole trading community even after the competitions end.   

Overall, joining a competition offers a good benchmark on whether or not your strategy is optimal. If you find yourself underperforming compared to your competitors, then you may want to realign your learnings and backtest your strategies in order to find the optimal system for you. However, if you find yourself performing better than others, then maybe you should think about transitioning to using a real portfolio with real cash or maybe even consider a career in professional fund managing. Joining a competition is truly a great opportunity that newbies and intermediate traders alike should not pass on. 

It’s time to challenge yourself.

JOIN THE BOUNCE BACK CHALLENGE, be hailed as the INVESTACUP 2020 CHAMPION, and get a chance to win awesome prizes — PRIZE POOL NOW PHP 500,000! 

Click on the photo to join.
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Featured News & Features

10 Lessons from the Trading Cup’s Top 10 Winners

Last January 20 marked the culminating event of Investagrams’ first major competition—the Investagrams Trading Cup 2017—and the turnout was absolutely incredible! Our hearts are truly overflowing and we are sincerely thankful for all the support from newbies, experienced traders, and even masters of the market.

We created the Investagrams Trading Cup to provide a fun avenue where everyone could showcase and improve their trading skills, but the turnout was more than anything we could have imagined. The competition was intense and we were amazed by the caliber of traders that came out on top.

Out of the almost 2000 traders who joined the competition, those who led the pack were truly inspiring and extremely generous in sharing their wisdom and experiences. Here are just 10 lessons out of the hundreds we learned from the Trading Cup 2017’s top 10 players.

#10

@joelduque: Work smarter, not harder.

Joel duque is the living proof that you don’t have to trade actively to earn significant profits. Through proper filtering, he was able to handpick stocks that had great potential and allowed him to bag the top 10 spot.

 

#9

@tris0314: Always be learning—from others and from yourself.

Tristran Montano shared his most significant trades throughout the competition, and highlighted the importance of learning continuously if you want to achieve success. He learns from various online blogs, websites, and his own history of trades.

 

#8

@MoneyGrowersPH: It’s never too late.

Despite lagging in the competition early on, he kept his composure and his winning attitude. In the end MoneyGrowersPH was able to rise up and prove that he indeed is one of the top traders.

 

#7

@Smalltime: There’s always a way to make it work.

Richard Baco is an OFW based in the Middle East. Despite holding down a full-time job, being in a different country, and even being in a different time zone, he still found a way to get the top 7 spot. He even gave a recorded video presentation since he couldn’t fly home for the culminating event.

#6

@Junster: Quality is more important than quantity.

You don’t have to have tons of trades to be profitable. In life and in trading, quality is almost always more important than quantity. When executing your trades, Joseph gave us these words of wisdom: Losing is inevitable. It’s part of the game. Just remember that you can win small, win big, lose small, but never lose big.

 

#5

@chad3ie: Focus on what’s really important.

Chad is one of the best traders of Citisecurities and a teacher in the Caylum Trading Institute. Aside from sharing some of his best tips, for life and trading, he reminded us of what’s really important—at the end of the day, what (or who) is it that we are trading for?

 

#4

@Scraffycoco: You can achieve your dreams at any age.

Rafael won 6th place in the Investagrams Stock Market Challenge last 2016 and has always dreamt of sharing his passion with a larger audience. Despite his young age, he proved that age is not a measure of mastery, and that with hard work and passion you can compete even at the highest level.

 

#3

@zeefreaks: It’s a jungle out there, but you can conquer it.

The mysterious head of the Zeefreaks Tribe and definitely a deserving leader in terms of skills and passion. During the competition, he proved to everyone that he is indeed one of the best traders in the Philippines. He shared his insights on how he studies and understands his prey before striking at the precise moment to capture the most profits.

#1

@bobbyaxelrod: There are always opportunities. You just have to know how to find them.

Edu bagged the most profits in the competition through his skills in finding momentum based trading opportunities. He shared simple but incredibly powerful tips for how he makes the most of the opportunities in the market.

 

#1

@Taylor: Above everything else, commitment is key.

One of the few masters of Elliot Wave here in the country, Javi used the Elliot Wave together with set-up based trading to consistently find great opportunities in the market. Through years of sharpening his trading style and skills, he was able to become a master trader and the champion of the Investagrams Trading Cup 2017.

These guys presented their strategies and trading tips in our Breaking Highs event last Jan 20, and even those of us who are experienced traders still learned a lot from them.

For those who weren’t able to attend, don’t worry! You can still watch the FULL VIDEO of all presentations and discussions. Click here to get access.

Categories
How to & Advice

What You Need to Know About Short Selling in the PSE

There has been news going around lately that the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) might finally allow short selling in 2018, resurrecting a plan that has been in the works since 2009. Whether or not the plan will push through is another story, but if it does, you need to be ready.

In this article, we’ll explain the basics of short selling, our advice, and how you can prepare yourself for the shake-up that might be coming in a few months.

What is Short Selling?

Short selling, also known as taking a short position, is when a trader sells a stock at a higher price before buying it at lower price—sell high, buy low. It’s just the opposite of taking a long position, where you buy low and then sell high.

Now, we know what you’re thinking. How the heck can you sell a stock before buying it??

The answer to your question is simple: you borrow shares. In other words, umutang ka muna. Sell those borrowed shares first. After that, you just have to buy shares to replace the ones you borrowed.

What Short Selling Means for PSE Traders

Most traders in the PSE always take the long position simply because it’s the only option available. For years, we’ve meticulously researched and developed systems to find and profit from stocks that are expected to increase in price.

We’re used to ignoring stocks with prices that are about to go down. After all, you can’t make money with those, right? Well with short selling, you can!

If you know how to use both the long and short positions, you can make money from stocks that are going up and from stocks that are going down!  You will essentially double your opportunities in the stock market. Of course there are also risks involved, but if you keep learning and stay disciplined then there’s no reason why you can’t succeed.

Our Advice

In the stock market, those that keep learning, trying new things, and improving themselves are the ones who succeed. None of us know for sure if short selling will really be allowed in 2018. But no matter what happens, you should still read about it and prepare yourself if you haven’t already.

Besides, you’re already doing the work anyway. The same research will tell you if a stock’s price will go up or down. Why not give yourself the opportunity to earn from both scenarios instead of ignoring half the opportunities?

We’re not saying you have to put 50% of your portfolio in the short position—not at all! After learning about short selling, you might even decide that it’s just not for you and that would be fine. But either way, you need to understand it first. Even if you don’t end up using it, you need to know what it is and how it affects other traders and the markets.

Try Before You Buy!

They say experience is the best teacher. So even before short selling is allowed in the PSE, you can already start practicing! See and feel what it’s like to trade from the short position using the Investagrams virtual trading platform. Just follow the 3 simple steps below to activate the feature:

Step 1: Go to your trade settings.

Click on your profile icon on the upper right of the homepage and select “Settings” from the drop down menu. When you’re on the Settings page, click “Trade” on the left navigation.

Step 2: Turn on the short selling feature.

Simply click on the toggle button to turn on the short selling feature. Your new settings will be saved automaticallly.

Step 3: Start trading!

When you go to your virtual trading account, you will now be able to choose if you want to trade from the long position or the short position.

Simple, right?

We hope this helped you understand what short selling is and how you can be prepared if the PSE allows it in 2018. If you have more questions, just leave them below!

For more investing tips and stock market advice, subscribe to InvestaDaily. You can also sign up for Investagrams to access free features to help you on your stock market journey.

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