Niederhoffer's year end contest! ($2500 prize for 3 best 2011 trading ideas)
- Thread starter 1prometheus
- Start date
I say Bob's call was excellent and the VIX went up 200% after he made that call. For Smurf, additional educational material:
http://vixandmore.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-trade-vix.html
How to trade the VIX?:
"Fortunately, there are a number of VIX derivatives that allow traders to take positions on the VIX without owning the underlying. In no particular order, they are:
VIX options â these include standard options as well as VIX binary options
VIX futures â standard VIX futures contracts have a contract size of 1000 times the VIX; the recently added mini-VIX futures have a contract size of 100 times the VIX
VIX ETNs â currently consists of two exchange traded notes: the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) and the iPath S&P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures ETN (VXZ). The former targets one month VIX futures and the latter targets five month VIX futures.
In addition to VIX products, one can always trade options on the SPX (or SPY). A long VIX position is very similar to a long SPX straddle (or strangle); a short VIX position is very similar to a short SPX straddle (or strangle.)"
http://vixandmore.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-trade-vix.html
How to trade the VIX?:
"Fortunately, there are a number of VIX derivatives that allow traders to take positions on the VIX without owning the underlying. In no particular order, they are:
VIX options â these include standard options as well as VIX binary options
VIX futures â standard VIX futures contracts have a contract size of 1000 times the VIX; the recently added mini-VIX futures have a contract size of 100 times the VIX
VIX ETNs â currently consists of two exchange traded notes: the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) and the iPath S&P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures ETN (VXZ). The former targets one month VIX futures and the latter targets five month VIX futures.
In addition to VIX products, one can always trade options on the SPX (or SPY). A long VIX position is very similar to a long SPX straddle (or strangle); a short VIX position is very similar to a short SPX straddle (or strangle.)"
So who won the contest and with what predictions?
As much as Victor didn't like Bob's prediction, VIX went from a 15-20 in January over 45 in August and was still at 30 about 3 weeks ago.
Edit: If I am reading this right, 31 contestants had 4.2 average predictions and 109 contract positions were placed to play these predictions. After 1 month:
"- The Average Return, so far, on the 109 contracts utilized is -1.26% with a Standard Deviation of 12.42%. Median Return is 0.39% and the mode of Returns of all contracts used is 0."
I wonder how that 109 positions were doing by the end of this week....
http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=5652#comments
This was pretty good too:
Jay Pasch predicts: (I deleted some)
Buy-and-holders will be sorely disappointed as 2011 presents itself as a whip-saw year.
99% of the bullish prognosticators will eat crow except for the few lonely that called for a tempered intra-year high of ~ SPX 1300.
SPX 1300 will fail with new 2011 low of 1050 before ending the year right about where it started.
As much as Victor didn't like Bob's prediction, VIX went from a 15-20 in January over 45 in August and was still at 30 about 3 weeks ago.
Edit: If I am reading this right, 31 contestants had 4.2 average predictions and 109 contract positions were placed to play these predictions. After 1 month:
"- The Average Return, so far, on the 109 contracts utilized is -1.26% with a Standard Deviation of 12.42%. Median Return is 0.39% and the mode of Returns of all contracts used is 0."
I wonder how that 109 positions were doing by the end of this week....
http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=5652#comments
This was pretty good too:
Jay Pasch predicts: (I deleted some)
Buy-and-holders will be sorely disappointed as 2011 presents itself as a whip-saw year.
99% of the bullish prognosticators will eat crow except for the few lonely that called for a tempered intra-year high of ~ SPX 1300.
SPX 1300 will fail with new 2011 low of 1050 before ending the year right about where it started.