Now that I have your attention…

What a week!

Like many of you I was busy preparing for 501 midterm,  515 case studies (not really) and the 515 midterm for  that we submitted today. So, I am sure you won’t be surprised to find out that I didn’t really check Stocktrack that much…or rather, I didn’t spend that much time on it. I’d drop in, just to check how my hard-earned fake money was doing, and then bounce…and what a ride…

On Monday, I had a return of 50.32%…feeling pretty good about this. “I’m king of the world!!!”

On Tuesday, I had a return of 44.50%…feeling OK, “win some lose some, right?”

On Wednesday, I had a return of 31.90%…When I saw this I was shocked…that’s a near 20% drop. “My God! Why have thou forsaken me!!!!” I thought to myself I just lost 20,000 dollars!!! I could have gotten another Bachelor’s at UBC…or another Master’s… Am I glad this is not real money!!!

Thursday, I had a return of 31.74%… I’m still in shock because of Wednesday’s loss!

As for today, after spending many hours praying to  the Money God(s), I had a return of 45.26% WOOHOO!! I am soo glad I got lucky..again!!

As you can see, it has been quite a ride…but this episode got me thinking. What if it WAS real money? I would not have been this calm…I would have spent HOURS on the site, checked what the spot price was constantly, looked at Candle charts to see if new trends or patterns were forming so I could stay ahead…It would have been a lot more personal…I could have made a lot more money..and of course, I could have lost a lot more too. So, in a way I’m glad I have been using this fake money…it may not be as personal but at least I’m learning the basics so that when it comes to investing with my own money I can be prepared.

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On a separate note, I’m going to be trading Currency futures for the next couple of weeks. I have been thinking about it a lot and I’ve come to realize that for a majority of the farmers/traders/companies/food processors/etc in the world another factor that adds significant risk is foreign exchange rates. Especially when you trade large quantities like a 100 tonnes or more of something, a 1 cent change in price per kilogram could lead to a 1000$ difference, which depending on how the local currency is doing compared to USD it could make a huge difference…

When I trade currency futures, I’m going to look at whether the prices move the way these agricultural commodities have and whether it would be easy or difficult to try to detect currency movements. I imagine it would be more difficult as there as so many extraneous factors involved, but I won’t know until I try.

So, wish me luck!!