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| Grimreaper |
 Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:23 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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Good change! please let us know ahead of time when you put the new 20 minute delay (which means we are buying real time) into effect, rut roh! no cheating allowed now!  |
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| Trading Simulator |
| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:12 am Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 73
This Month: 0
24013.99 e$
Net worth: 776,665.99
Portfolio Value: 752,652.00
Monthly Return: -2.31%
Trades this month: 0
Churn Rate: 0.00%Items
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| Grimreaper wrote: | | Good change! please let us know ahead of time when you put the new 20 minute delay (which means we are buying real time) into effect, rut roh! no cheating allowed now! |
The trading screen will be updated to denote that orders will be processed on a delay. There will also be an option for Market versus Limit orders, although the limit choice will not be active.
We still have to determine the algorithm to use to figure out if a stock has moved "through" the limit price or not. It would be interesting to see how real brokerages handle this, as it doesn't seem like a trivial problem.
With the order delay in place, you'll have to be careful that you have enough funds to cover your buy order. If the stock is $10 now but goes up to $20 in twenty minutes then you will need twice as much cash. As a result, we will probably include a "Fill or Kill" option at some point as well. |
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| Grimreaper |
| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 4:20 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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To answer your question about real trading, if the stock hits your limit buy and even trades below it you may or may not get your order filled, it just depends on how many sellers there are at the time your limit gets hit, if the lowest trade is simply one seller getting a stop hit then you lose out on your buy if you aren't the first limit buy in line, for purposes of this game perhaps you should make it that your exact limit price needs to get hit, this will eliminate cheating on stocks that trade a few hundred shares a day and have price swings of 10%+ or more on each trade, for stuff that trades on volume we can always resubmit a new buy limit and chances are good we will get within a few pennies of any intended limit buy we have in mind, the new rules changes coming makes it so that you will actually have to have a buy point in mind, so you are getting very close to actual real time market situations, that's good because I think fokes is here to learn, ya can't learn by cheatin based on a 20 minute delay  |
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| Trading Simulator |
| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:33 am Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 73
This Month: 0
24013.99 e$
Net worth: 776,665.99
Portfolio Value: 752,652.00
Monthly Return: -2.31%
Trades this month: 0
Churn Rate: 0.00%Items
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First, thanks for taking the time to provide some input. You said:
| Grimreaper wrote: | | ...for purposes of this game perhaps you should make it that your exact limit price needs to get hit, this will eliminate cheating on stocks that trade a few hundred shares a day and have price swings of 10%+ or more on each trade |
I thought about that, making the simulator require an "exact" hit on the limit price, but I think that may be too restrictive. In order to avoid killing our web server, the order queue is only checked once every 60 seconds. Odds may be decent that a stock trades "through" a limit price during that time delay. My initial plan was to record the "last trade price" and compare to "current price". If the limit is between the last and current, and the direction is correct, then I will assume that the limit was triggered.
So if the last price was 10 and current is 11 and my limit was 10.50 and I'm selling, then the order will fill. If the last price was 20 and current is 19.75 and my buy limit was 19.76 then the order will fill. This means that I have to know the order type (buy or sell) which I do, the limit price which the user will provide, and the last / current quotes from Yahoo, which will be one minute apart.
If the current price is 15 and my buy limit was 16 then the order is immediately filled at 15.
If the current price is 20 and my sell limit was 18 then the order is immediately filled (sold) at 20.
It's only if the current quote is not already above (below) the buy (sell) limit price that I need to reprocess the order.
Hopefully this will work. It probably will not be in place for this month's update however. |
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| Grimreaper |
| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:16 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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Ooops! it looks like you cut out the last 20 minutes of trading when you cut in the first 20 minutes of trading trading closed at 4 PM, SMTX was still trading at 2.38 at 4 PM, it closed at 2.49 but because of the flaw I couldn't take profits if I wanted to, not that I wanted to sell the entire position, but it would have been nice to at least take some off!  |
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| Trading Simulator |
| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 73
This Month: 0
24013.99 e$
Net worth: 776,665.99
Portfolio Value: 752,652.00
Monthly Return: -2.31%
Trades this month: 0
Churn Rate: 0.00%Items
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| Grimreaper wrote: | | Ooops! it looks like you cut out the last 20 minutes of trading when you cut in the first 20 minutes of trading trading closed at 4 PM, SMTX was still trading at 2.38 at 4 PM, it closed at 2.49 but because of the flaw I couldn't take profits if I wanted to, not that I wanted to sell the entire position, but it would have been nice to at least take some off! |
Trading is open to 4:00 eastern time. At exactly 4:00:00 trading is closed. If you got your order in by 3:59:59 it would have entered the queue.
FYI, when the order queue is put into place, the queue monitor runs until 4:20 eastern time in order to allow for the 20 minute delay to run its course. The simulator will process orders from 9:50 AM to 4:20 PM eastern time. You will be able to enter orders any time you want (unlike now, where you can only enter orders from 9:30 to 4:00 eastern time) and the orders will be processed when the market is open.
What you may have seen is that the final trading activity doesn't actually hit the wire / quote services until after 4:00 or a little after. Our market will close exactly at 4:00.  |
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| Grimreaper |
| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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| Hmmm, I assume that means we can already make limit sells, because when I checked at around 3:55PM you guys still had it trading in the 2.30's and I didn't want to sell in the 2.30's when I knew it was going to at least 2.45, if I could have set a limit sell at 2.45 going into the close and your system would have scanned open orders up until 4:20 (even though it said markets are now closed) I'm sure it would have been filled, otherwise there was no way for me to get a sell order at 2.45 filled at the market since trade sim closed down at exactly 4 PM EST and missed the last 20 minutes of trading, but as you said, this problem will be solved soon so no biggie |
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| Benjamin |
| Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:36 am Post subject: |
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Administrator
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| Thanks for all the feedback Grim. |
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| Grimreaper |
| Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:49 am Post subject: |
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CFO
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No problemo, always doin what I can to help improve da site  and speaking of improvements, what you need now is a charting function that is tied to the site, I think I know of a charting service that has the best charting software on da planet, and methinks they's gone defunct, maybe yuns guys could mosey on ova theya and see about pickin up da software on da cheap! lemme know what ya think! I may even run charting tutorials for ya later on for a phenominal service charge! |
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| Trading Simulator |
| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:36 am Post subject: |
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Investing Sr. Associate
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 73
This Month: 0
24013.99 e$
Net worth: 776,665.99
Portfolio Value: 752,652.00
Monthly Return: -2.31%
Trades this month: 0
Churn Rate: 0.00%Items
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Grimreaper, what you encountered was a "black hole" between the old trading system and the new trading system. The current quotes are 20 minutes delayed, but trading is still stopped at 4:00 PM sharp. So yes, in a matter of speaking, you lost the last 20 minutes of trading activity. When the trading queue is operational (we're shooting for tomorrow for a release) then you will be able to place orders up to 4:00 but the order queue will be processed until 4:20. So an order placed at 3:59:59 will be executed at the quote reported at 4:19:19, giving you the ability to capture the activity in the last 20 minutes of the trading day.
Hopefully that was clear. |
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