re: Who wants to put the combined MT heads together and make some $?

Here is my suggestion:

Everybody has to own exactly three equities or some other clearly defined, accessible, and open financial instrument by the end of the day (3pm Central) on January 13. Commodities, bonds, ETFs, etc are allowed. Commodities can be purchased at spot price or via ETF.

Everyone starts off with $100,000 dollars. At least 20% of your updated money total must be in each holding.

You can trade as much as you would like, and there are no commission fees. However, when you sell one of your holdings, you have to pick up a third by the close of the 3rd business day after that sale.

This gap in time is the only time in which you are allowed to hold "cash."

Each holding must be held for at least one hour.
After a sale, you cannot re-purchase that same holding for at least one hour.

Every transaction has to be clearly posted, and no edits are allowed, except to your original post, where you will keep track of every transaction you make. You must state the exact time of each transaction.

No shorting is allowed, except in ETFs that mirror shorting. No margin trading or option trading either.

We can have updates at the end of each month, with monthly winners, and then of course a yearly winner, ending the last business day of 2013.

I like the idea of everyone having to have exactly three holdings because it keeps things more simple and less erratic. Also, each transaction would have to be posted in its separate post (no edits allowed unless it's just a typographical error).

Of course, we would need to be on some sort of honor system here, because it's too hard for one person to track everything. However, person keeps all of their transactions in their first post, then I could track everyone's progress at the end of the month and update the thread.

Let me know what y'all think.

Doc Fenton: who did they recommend in the sequel?

Sounds like what I did in HS when we started a stock club. We created a 5k portfolio and tracked it all semester. Teacher gave the person who made the most a prize.

Okay, let me be serious now.

I've never really been a fan of stock clubs or competitions, because they seem to go completely against the grain of what value investing (in the tradition of Benjamin Graham & Warren Buffett) should be all about. First, because the time periods when a good stock investment will pay off are inherently unpredictable. Second, because there is no way to evaluate similarity of risk profiles for different portfolios that are competing against other in an artificial competition. I know very little about practical investing, but from what I gather, trying to be overly competitive about your returns versus the other guy is exactly what gets you in the most trouble.

Now, those are the drawbacks, but I do see some good that can be done with an "investment choice tracking thread" or something similar. In past years I tracked SEC football picks against the spread on the SEC Rant, just to keep an objective account at who was good at picking games, and who wasn't. It's good to be objective about things, and to do this, it's good to amass a nice data set from lots of people.

The problem here is how to categorize and formalize investment ideas in a way that's flexible enough to take account of varying risk and time profiles. That's not an easy task, and really, I'm not sure I know how I'd go about trying to design it. Still, I think something useful could be done.

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Yeah. You could have 40 people tossing out 20 or so stocks.

We could limit it to 2-3 recommendations per poster so the others could evaluate them independently and give them a rating of 1 thru 5; with 5 being strong support and 1 being weak.

You can't rate your own submissions.

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This actually sounds like you're on the right track. I think you should just be flexible about how people choose their own objective measuring criterion. Poster A might give an idea, and say, "I would hold Stock X until June 15." Poster B might give another idea, and say, "I would hold Stock Y until either Stock Z goes below $20/share, the yen appreciates by 10%, or UST 10yr yields rise above 2.5%." Either one should be a valid investment idea.

Ultimately, though, how well the idea pans out will be a subjective judgment. That's why I like your 1-5 rating scale. After a year, the poster who has the best rating average with a minimum of N number of picks could be declared a winner.

For my part, I don't think I'm yet competent to be either making or judging the investment ideas.

Finally, be sure to run things by the admins and be careful about the "this is just a game and should not be construed as actual investment advice," yada, yada, yada.

Shipping has been dead for years w/ no near term catalysts.

I just purchased a Mortgage REIT (IVR) a week ago and it's popped nicely. I think with the Fed still providing support and interest rates largely staying flat, this will be a nice investment for me.

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I've got three ideas.

#1. Whitewood-Young Industries...low P.E. Explosive earnings. 30% discount from book. Great cash flow. Coupla 5% holders. Strong management.

#2. Terafly...Analysts don't like it. I do. The breakup value is twice the market price. The deal finances itself. Sell off two divisions.

#3. Bluestar Airlines. A comer. 80 medium-body jets. 300 pilots, flies northeast, Canada, some Florida and Caribbean routes...great slots in major cities...There was a crash last year. They just got a favorable ruling on a lawsuit. Even the plaintiffs don't know...the decision'll clear the way for new planes and route contracts. There's only a small float out there, so you should grab it. Good for a five point pop.

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Lunch is for wimps.

I'm betting on AMZN having a killer earnings report.

I called TEU on 12/20 in this thread LINK

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If you want something to throw money at you should check out TEU. It's a younger company, pays a 21% dividend and sitting around its 52 week low. It's a good value at least.

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up 27% since.