stock contest?


Hi all. I was wondering if anyone knew of a stock market contest that we could enter that pays good money for winning? Looking to do this trading the s&p 500 emini.
Robbins trading online, world cup traders did that but you have to open an account with them, and their commissions are too high for the way I trade. I think that would be a fun thing to do though, let me now if you find anything.
I had posted a long reply to this but then went and lost it through something stupid I did with my browser. Let me see if I can remember what I said.

www.marketzar.com tried this a few years ago but just visited their website now and it looks inactive.

Other companies have tried to do this but it just doesn't work for day trading futures because the rewards for doing well in the real world far outweigh those of competitions that the incentive is not high enough. i.e. People want to trade to make money not for the competition, not to compete against each other. The competition already exists in the real world. Whoever leaves the table with the most money is the biggest winner.

You could easily setup your own competition on a daily basis in a chat room. Have a set of rules and invite anybody that wants to compete to join in. Of course there would be no prize unless you came up with one or you had everyone put up an entry fee...
Thanks CharterJoe. Thanks day trading. I noticed that cnbc had one and the top prize winner got $500,000. The second prize winner got $200,000. And the third place winner got a $100,000. If you don't have money saved up but you've been having success paper trading, this wouldn't be a bad thing.
Is this the competition that you're talking about: Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge?
The problem with these competitions, in my opinion, is that they aren't very good at measuring true trading performance, as practiced by successful professional stay at home traders who have long-term consistent records. They encourage wild risk taking and over-leverage, as well as other bad trading habits, and those that don't blow out, mostly by pure chance, win or place high. If you use that style over time you generally will lose money overall. I shoot for a very nominal return, comparatively speaking, in my own trading, and if that rate were to jump way up I would get suspicious, and study what could be the cause, and I'd actually be looking to change it to bring the rate down, as I would likely have over-leveraged myself, or increased my risk per trade over my acceptable limit, and so on. I'm talking about something beyond the normal streaks that happen. I'm sure many will disagree with all this, but I seriously encourage everyone to look at the mathematics behind it, and you'll see.
I agree with Jim. In these competitions you often have one person trading several accounts and each of them in a different high risk stock and it's likely that one of those accounts will do well and the others will blow out.
quote:
Originally posted by jimkane

I shoot for a very nominal return



Jim,

If its not to personal a question how much is that nominal return? Percentage wise I mean are you talking in the single digits? I too have noticed high returns (like 100%) one month leads to low returns the next month or 2 and visa versa...don't know if its mental or cyclical? I don't know how it is with you guys but I usually have a month that makes my year....a week that makes the month...and a day that makes my week. And I don't think I am overleveraged. just my 1 1/2 cent


Do you have any advise on the topic of increasing contracts and keeping the same level of discretionary trading? While keeping good money mang. I don't want to look back 12 months from now and be trading the same size I am now. Any thoughts?