End of the game (week 10)

It seems that THIS week is the last week of blogging for me (the plans changed and I need to blog one more week). This is the last week for news regarding the trading game. I would keep this blog and try to post interesting economic and food related subjects in the future. As a passionate Economist should do 🙂

This week, knowing that “the game is over”, I off set all my remaining contracts. I had 1 long contract on corn (C3N) which I was watching for a long time to offset but never find the right moment (to bring me gain not loss).  I also had 3 short contracts on corn (C3H) and 4 short contracts on soybean (S3H).

After offsetting these contracts, my realized gains increased from $28,798 to $33,028. At the end of 10 weeks of trading futures contracts on commodities market, I could multiply my virtual money from $40,000 to $73.028. I am glad I didn’t lose, but I don’t think I could do the same with real money and real emotions.

The good think about this game is that it helped me understand who determine the prices on the real world markets, how to look for economic information and also to get into the habit of doing it daily.

I also want to conclude with some advises for trading futures contracts. The article “How to Get the Most Out of Your Futures Trading System” is written by Brian McAboy (from Inside Out Trading) that I found to be very useful for those who want to work in this field. The main idea of this article is that “recording and tracking the performance of trading system is absolutely essential to truly maximize profits”!

“There are two primary steps you must take to really get the most out of your trading system.

The first thing you must do is to have a clear and written trading system, preferably a proven one.  

In trading, your goal is consistent profits, so the more consistent you do what you do, the more consistent your results. Consistency is one of the greatest benefits of having a well-systemized trading method, but you must take it one step further to really get the most out of it.

The second matter to tend to is confirming just ‘how good’ your trading system is.

Many traders over the years have developed and published very profitable trading systems that do actually work. Yet many hundreds of traders have taken those same systems and not even come close to the creator’s success, for different reasons.

If you wish to truly get the most out of your trading system, first make sure that you have properly documented your trading system in a manner which lends itself to being traded consistently.  The second step is to test your system and analyze the metrics, so that you know what to realistically expect from your system, and then track those metrics on an on-going basis to really maximize your profits and consistency.”

http://barchart.com/headlines/story.php?id=7495169