cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49878453
Solo project I’ve been building this month, wanted to share here. The rules:
You get $10,000 and two secret years of real S&P 500 history, drawn from 1928 to 2019 (daily data, dividends included; your cash earns T-bill rates while you hide). One button: BUY or SELL. Your opponent is a couch. It buys at the start and never moves.
Every finished game is audited by 1,000 monkeys. It’s a permutation test 1,000 replays with your same time in the market and same number of trades, on random days. Beat 90% of the monkeys and your win is stamped TIMED THE MARKET. Anything less is stamped LUCKY, in red ink, on your settlement document.
About 84,000 games have been played so far. The couch has won 63% of them. Roughly 1 game in 9 ends in a win that survives the monkey audit.
There’s also a daily hand, same secret window for everyone, streaks, and a public ledger of humanity vs the couch.
If you have time, I’d love feedback, and I will answer any methodology questions, thanks!
It’s a little scary to learn that the reason the stock market graphs are always so jagged minute to minute through the day is because of people like these.
there’s opportunity in trading. but to assume you’ll get the benefit is very similar to assuming you’ll beat the casino. it’s possible, but unlikely, especially in the long term.
ironic that you say you’ll lose in the long term, given that investing long term in an index fund is one of the safest ways to invest.
yeah, that’s the whole point of the game. “trading” is the one that will not work in the long term. staying in the index fund is the good option.
Well you can game volatile stocks and you can buy and sell whenever you feel like it. Stuff like Tesla you know they’re gonna swing down or swing up because shit’s just so manipulated
The loss on this case is “relative to an index fund”