The competition returns next week!

We will feature 4 quarterly competitions this year; $2000 prize for each.

Welcome back subscribers!

After a few weeks of silence we’re ready for action again! This year we’re launching a total of 4 competitions, one for each quarter, where the prize money for each competition is $2000 for the winner. So more money, more opportunities to test yourself against others, and more fun!

The first competition starts next week, on Tuesday, January 25th. We will again ask you to predict the Friday close value of several indicators and tickers within the next 24 hours. Our regular competitors will all receive their predictions on Wednesday morning (EST). This way, you are not only in it for the grand prize, you can make some money along the way each week. We will be posting a quick video of how to take advantage of this. But only if you’re a regular user.

This first competition will last for a total of 10 weeks, finishing officially on Friday, April 1st (the final predictions will be given on Tuesday, March 29th). If you want those $2000 make sure to give out regular predictions each week. Consistency is rewarded, since every week you fail to give a prediction, you lose points. See our rules within the app for more.

Have a look at what our two winners of the previous competition have to say about it (they were separated by a 0.052 point margin!):

What’s new in the survey?

We were working on the app mainly to improve user experience. As of Week 3 you’ll be able to see a performance graph of all your predictions, tracking your rank over time. This is in addition to the survey leaderboard, which tracks your weekly score.

What will we ask you predict this time?

The usual suspects with a few minor changes. During the last quarter you were asked to predict a total of 9 tickers. We’ve decreased that to 7, and we’ve switched oil prices for the weekly VIX predictions. In 2022 you will be predicting:

• S&P500

• Dow Jones

• Bitcoin

• 10-year T-bill yield

• VIX

• AAPL

• TSLA

We left only two stocks, AAPL and TSLA, as these are typically the two stocks with the highest volume of trading. The VIX was once before a part of our surveys, and we’re bringing it back for the same reasons we’ve introduced it back in July:

The VIX measures total market volatility using near-term options trades on the SPX (the S&P500 ETF). In itself the VIX is designed as a predictive indicator, as it generates a 30-day forward projection of volatility in the S&P. Having an idea of where the VIX will end up is a good indicator of risk preferences and investor sentiment. The bigger the weekly move of the VIX, the bigger the expected S&P volatility, which means that stock prices will move up or down by a large margin.

Have in mind that the VIX is typically highly negatively correlated with the S&P500. Whenever there’s a huge sell-off, the VIX goes up, and by some margin. The opposite when the market rallies upwards.

A decent options strategy for the VIX is to buy or sell UVXY options. The UVXY is an ETF that follows the VIX (offers a leveraged exposure to S&P volatility basically). If the predictions on the VIX turn out to be as good as for the others, we will be adding UVXY options to our arsenal of strategies for investing.

So stick around, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to the newsletter, and see you back here next week!