06/02/09 dmaul Smashes S&P in QTC10!Congratulations to dmaul for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- With a spectacular return of 80%, dmaul nearly tripled the return of
the S&P (29%) to capture first place in QTC10. Equitrader spoke with dmaul on his strategy: "My positions for QTC10
were mostly in oil and natural gas. I had noticed the downward trend that oil had followed during the recession months and
accurately predicted that oil would regain strength for two reasons: the market was entering a recovery period and summer
months create increased demand. The US economy rebounded magnificently which guaranteed explosive growth in the oil and
gas industries. I do not expect that the next quarter will be as clear cut as the previous one was; that is, I expect
much more volatility as increasing demand struggles against increasing financial uncertainty."
04/27/09 Jamil99 Takes First Place in the 2008 Equitrader Collegiate Challenge!Congratulations to Jamil99 for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- We recently completed the second annual Equitrader Collegiate Challenge. It was a very exciting competition that came down to the wire. This year"s competition lasted roughly six months. Participation was at an all time high and the performance certainly did not disappoint. This year"s first prize goes to Jamil99 with a return of 93.58%. Second place went to johnatusa with a return of 73.61%. Third place was secured by Killer with a 50.71% return. Jamil99 was kind enough to supply a little insight on the winning strategy: "I always used to help my parents in making investments in stock, and from there on in I developed an interest in the stock market. I read lot of articles and books and followed the market religiously. During the ECC, I saw the world markets fall like never before. I wished if I had money I would have shorted few heavy weight stocks. After a certain threshold, and from the long term graph ,it was evident that the arket would not recover easily. I took advantage during the ECC by shorting some of the stocks which were trading higher than their fundamental value. I targeted stocks like Yahoo, XLF, UBS, MER, HK, MS, GS. Almost all of these lost 20-60% thus helping me with a winning total of over 90% return. 03/17/09 raghibkhan_786 Edges jdmetz To Win SAC2!Congratulations to raghibkhan_786 for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- SAC2 turned out to be an amazing competition. The top two members managed to produce returns over 200%. In the end, the return of 257% for raghibkhan_786 outlasted the 242% return for jdmetz. Equitrader spoke with raghibkahn_786 on his victory: "The market was mostly in the bearish mood with some respite during the last 6 months.I realized this in the early stages of the contest and on every rally shorted the financial/Oil/Metals/banks.The sentiments of the investors have gone very poor and this kind of market should be used for selling and shorting.This was my strategy throughout the contest.I took about 10-15 different calls through the contest period which included about 80% short calls with success in most of them.In between,there were some good rallies also and I took the advantage by buying some of the stocks from retail sector during the small bullish rallies" 02/03/09 haveatry Flys High In MTC33!Congratulations to haveatry for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- haveatry racked up another victory in stunning fashion. His %40+ return in MTC33 was about double that of second place finisher. haveatry commented on his victory: "At the beginning of the month, I felt the airlines were exceptionally high after a drastic decrease in oil price by the end of last year, so I shorted them. Believing in the big trend, I held them throughout the month however they fluctuated. Finally, it paid off with a 40% gain and grabbing the first place on the last day." 12/09/08 raghibkhan_786's Impressive Return Takes QTC8!Congratulations to raghibkhan_786 for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn (EqP) - In a very close finish, raghibkhan_786 continued his dominance of the market. He just edged haveatry to win QTC8 with a 122% return. raghibkhan_786 shared his thoughts on QTC8: "At the start of the Quarter, there were lot of bad news pouring in. First one was the downfall of Lehman.I took the advantage from there on by shorting on financial. Mostly banking stocks were the ones which got affected the most,namely MS,GS,LEH,UBS and others. Later on,somewhere in the mid-quarter,it was very obvious that Oil prices will sink. I did short again, this time mostly on OIL and energy companies- HK,DNR,PDO . In the near end I took the advantage of a buying rally to take my returns to 120%+ to sneak out a victory by closest of margins." 10/27/08 dmaul Narrowly Wins WTC134!Congratulations to dmaul for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP) - dmaul emerged victorious in a tight race. His 22% return was enough to capture first place in WTC134. dmaul commented on his first victory: "I watched the closely related values of crude oil and the major airlines and simply followed the common trends for each market day. The market movement each day last week for airlines was enough to just edge out a victory on this alone." 10/09/08 raghibkhan_786 Wins Second Straight Monthly Competition!Congratulations to raghibkhan_786 for winning 1st placeGlastonbury, Conn (EqP) - Back to back victories in impressive fashion. raghibkhan_786 earned his second straight monthly victory with an astounding 77% return in MTC29. Equitrader caught up with raghibkhan_786 for comment on his latest victory: "At the start of the month I was expecting the downward trend reversal and hence bought stocks from financia & Oil sectors Which proved to be a big mistake. I saw myself down -25% and at the bottom.There on,The market was having all sorts of negative sentiments,and the only way one should have gone is - Short!. I did a short twice on Lehman,Aig,merrill Lynch,Morgan Stanley,Goldman Sachs,AVF,AGM and several others.Most of them Crashed, giving me a heavy return of 76+% which was enough to give me consecutive MTC victories!!" 09/18/08 disciple042 Wins in his First Competition!Congratulations to disciple042 for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn (EqP) - One competition and one victory. disciple042 could not have started any better. His 20.4% return was enough to claim first place in WTC128. disciple042 gave us some insight on his victory: "Winning last week's competition was really based off of the financial market. With Lehman on the way down, that spiraled into other companies on their way down, not necessarily to bankruptcy but rather just their price per stock fell dramatically. Also, with the price of oil falling dramatically, I invested in the dollar and rode that the last couple of days in the week. It was all about understanding the stocks that are inversely proportional to others." 09/08/08 Zwang97 Doubles Down in SAC1!Congratulations to zwang97 for winning 1st placeGlastonbury, Conn (EqP) - Zwang97 turned in one of the best performances ever and an Equitrader competition. He was able eclipse the 100% return barrier early on in SAC1 while coasting to an easy victory. Equitrader spoke with Zwang97 about his stellar performance : "I was betting heavily on solar companies in this first 6-month long competition. My original thought was that the energy sector, especially the solar companies would run again when the crude oil stabilized at a high price level. Considering these solar companies already experienced dramatic sell-off (a lot of them were 40% off their highs). I think it worked so well that my return quickly exceeded 100%, so I decided that it was too much for a success." 08/27/08 Newcomer raghibkhan_786 Wins His Second Straight Competition!Congratulations to raghibkhan_786 for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- raghibkhan_786 is off to a tremendous start. After a winning return of 14.7% in WTC124, he followed that up with a solid 21.25% to win WTC125 as well. Equitrader spoke with raghibkhan_786 after winning WTC125: "After raking more than 14% in WTC-124 and eventually winning it,this week I concentrated on Oil,Metal, & Energy companies.Most of the companies from this sector are over sold.Bought selected stocks from each of these sector on Tuesday and sold each of them on Thursday before close after assessing and predicting that market would be falling on Friday.Thus Racking over 21% return in 4 days and relaxed and watched the competitors fight on the fifth day." 08/13/08 SpeedingLunatic Cruises to Victory in WTC123!Congratulations to SpeedingLunatic for winning 1st place!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- Playing the volatility card, SpeedingLunatic turned in an impressive 26% return to win WTC123. Equitrader caught up with the famed lunatic for comment on his victory:"A week long competition is pretty much a toss-up where you make a bold move and hope it pans out. Even with tight stops, if the market moves against you, there is usually not enough time to make a comeback. At the beginning of the week, oil was down about 14% from its top in mid-July. By going long on airlines, I made the most risky bet I could that oil would continue this trend. Four of Five days last week were down days for oil (and therefore up days for airlines), which panned out just well enough for me to squeak by in first." 07/29/08 Holgave Comes Up Short in WTC121!Congratulations to holgrave for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- Riding the financial wave bolstered holgrave and his %40+ to win WTC121. Holgrave spoke with Equitrader on his victory: "This past week was a wild ride. I made all of my money shorting the financials, but I had some extremely lucky timing or else it wouldn't have turned out quite as well. I opened my short positions at the market open on Monday, covered them on Tuesday before the huge rally, and then put them on again Thursday and got out Friday morning. I picked some of the ones that have been more volatile lately in order to maximize my potential return, such as FNM and FRE. I love making the same money twice by covering on a big dip down and then re-shorting after a bounce." 07/16/08 The Force Was With dark_lord in WTC119!Congratulations to dark_lord for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- In a very close contest, dark_lord was able to fend off SpeedingLunatic in WTC119 despite having a lower absolute return. dark_lord commented on his victory: "I had no good trading ideas at the beginning of the week, so I waited until Tuesday night to place my trades. At that point, I felt several stocks were over-valued. I shorted a good mix of banks, airlines and hotels. The cost of oil has already devastated the airlines to the point where most are un-shortable here on Equitrader. I think the hotels are next..." 07/01/08 Holgrave's 10% is Tops in WTC116!Congratulations to holgrave for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- Well almost 10%, 9.88% to be exact. No one even came close to holgrave in WTC116. The S&P couldn't even manage to stay in the black for the week ending down 3%. We caught up with holgrave to gain some insight to his thinking for WTC116: "This week I continued my strategy of shorting financials and homebuilders, but started branching out into shorting some commercial real estate trusts such as GGP and VNO. Those looked pretty promising, and they didn't disappoint this week." 06/30/08 SpeedingLunatic Captures Checkered Flag in WTC115!Congratulations to SpeedingLunatic for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- The S&P hovered at about break even for the week but that did not impact SpeedingLunatic. When WTC115 ended, he found himself and his 11.33% return in first place. SpeedingLunatic provided Equitrader with a glimpse into his winning strategy: "Based purely on technicals, I have been quite bearish on precious metals recently. I opened short positions on several mining stocks and a gold ETF on Monday. Gold and silver took a beating on Tuesday, and I was able to lock in a gain of over 11% in just over 24 hours. I decided to sit out the rest of the week and see if anyone could catch me." 06/15/08 Huge Returns for Zwang97 in RQC1 and QTC6!Congratulations to zwang97 for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- What a quarter for zwang97! With returns of 35.86% and 70.07% in RQC1 and QTC6, zwang97 was in a class by himself for the last three months. Equitrader caught up with zwang97 for some insight to his blockbuster quarter: "I noticed the rising energy price may push the inflation even higher and gave a lot of pressure to stocks, especially those financial companies. I bet that the solar companies may benefit from this so I invested heavily in this sector. The result from RMQ1 and QTC6 confirmed that my sense was right." 05/01/08 Dark_lord Shines In WTC112!Congratulations to dark_lord for winning the 1st place prize!Glastonbury, Conn. (EqP)- In a rough week for the S&P 500, WTC112 had an impressive performer. First place went to dark_lord with a 7.29% return. Here's what he had to say on his victory: "Peak Oil is my strategy. Last week was one of those weeks with the Peak Oil-button stuck on fast forward, so my oil and energy positions did well. Who is hit hardest by Peak Oil? The airlines. I shorted US Airways, and they got absolutely hammered." |
