monthly average should be posted over the 'max' timeframe.

I agree... It is also much harder to maintain an above average return record over a long period. Some folks do really great picking a few winners and racking up great numbers in the short term. But those investing for the long term and who want risk adjustment and management skill as part of the program are better served looking at longer term figures that are consistent.

I still think Options should be allowed on MG. Capital efficiency and risk management are more than concepts......

Hello guys,
We like this input.
MarketGuru is geared towards the long term investor and we agree that Monthly averages are harder to maintain over longer periods of time.
What do you think the time frame should be?
I'm thinking 36 months.
Sean.

When looking at returns I generally look at 3, 5, and 10 years. So, I would vote for the 36 or 60 month time frame.

~M

if 'max' is asking too much, im game for 36 months. it would be a big improvement for sure. thanks for the quick response.

Ell,
We can do it for any amount of time, including "Max" - I'm wondering if there is any downside to this down the line?
One could say that a 5 year period is better than 7 years because it allows for an investor to improve over time. Not sure that's true at all, which is why I'm fishing for feedback ;)
Sean.

in general it would be nice to see several timeframes...or a settinh that allows followers to toggle/choose. I like monthly, qurterly, annual, YTD and 3yr.

But in reality, I presume that not enough people have accumulated a 3 yr track record to make it worthwile....I totally agree with marketpro...especially when it comes to risk adjusted returns.... This would be a nice metric to consider when choosing a guuru. Does one want to outperform the SP by 10pts but take a extraordinary risk with penny stocks and binary biotech? Or would one rather outperfrom by 5% but taking a much lesser risk? A metric that can show risk adjusted perfomrance would be most useful to followers looking to compare apples to apples...

Maven,
When a member has less than the X amount of months we're tracking, we will show "Max" by default.
As for Risk metrics, we've tried to stay away from determening risk for our members as there are so many measures available.
What we have done is measure members charts for volatility (Standard Deviation) and present that mark on a curve so that top 1/3 most voletile charts are "High Volatility", middle 1/3 are "Medium" and least volatile are "Low".
Which risk metrics would you choose?
Though I agree we should display a wide range of data about our members, it remains important in our minds to focus on one measurement that can help compare investors in the best way. We feel "Monthly Average Compared to the S&P" is the best metric as it takes consistency and talent to keep that figure positive over time.
Focusing on this data point alone, we are wondering what would be the best time frame to set the trailing average on.. why do you feel 3 years is better than say, 5?

I'd think 36 months would be more than enough time to establish whether or not a longer term trading strategy is successful over varying market conditions.

i like the idea of using 'max' up to a set point in time and three years would probably be enough, though i don't object to more. I'm pretty happy with this solution. as for metrics, I think I was speaking more to noobs and how they get lined up when first clicking the guru button.

I think overcomplicating the site for noobs is not a great idea and the risk metrics being used now are complex enough.

All great info friends,
MG I appreciate your continued project management and refinements
everyone has raised great points to consider and I second MAV100 & MP

I assume "noobs" is some jargan for new to MG or investing? Personally I disagree with trying to market or establish oneself as a professional advisor on this site, If you are a pro use real money! back up your words with real action and market yourself as such. Anonymity is crucial to this media and its credibility will become suspect if there are too many "ringers" in our midst.

Conducting real experiments and research becomes harder to control for if to many virtual investors are not real amateurs. If you are still here pretending after 3 years of trial and error, should I trust your commitment to capitalism?

Given this is the internet and the site is relatively new still, I vote for something like 3mo/6mo + alltime

If I had to choose only a few timframes - I would use YTD and 3 months, but I like to see monthly as well. I think a alltime max timframe is also helpful.

As far as risk metrics, you are right, there are plenty to choose from, but I am not a big fan of the metric MG uses.
Here are a few that are fairly common and easy to understand
1) Maximum Monthly (or choose another period) Loss
2) Sharp Ratio - simple but effective, since it looks at returns above the benchmark and divides it by std dev. Nothing complicated, but it will help understand how much risk a guru is taking to deliver the outperfomance...

Cmon, anyone on this or any other website delivering 2000% returns is either taking an EXTRAORDINARY amount of risk or just gaming the system. I think the newbies you are trying to protect should be aware of this.....I am not sure that the volatility stat by itself and can be as useful.

Hi guys,

This is my first opinion here and I apologize for my English (I am from Italy and obviously
English is not my mother tongue, anyway I will try to do my best... sorry! :)

First of all, I think that the newby should choose his/her gurus based not only on the
return metrics but also on the trading style. MarketGuru has excellent filters for choosing
gurus and one of the most important is the number of trades per month. It is quite
obvious that a trader that makes 50-60 trades per month (as I do) and - above all - puts
nearly all his cash on a SINGLE stock per time (again, as I - and a few others on this site
- do) is not an investor interested in constructing a smart portfolio, but an aggressive
trader that accepts an EXTREMELY high risk and a potentially dangerous volatility. So it
is quite obvious that my trading style may be very dangerous if a follower is not
extremely reactive and can not follow the market minute-by-minute. In addition, I
received a few emails of followers that regularly receive the BUY alerts from MarketGuru
but not the SELL alerts, so I tried to contact them by email/Skype when necessary to
give the SELL signals.

This is a great site, but everyone needs to be careful because there is no one-fit-for-all
method (not in the performance metrics, risk parameters, trading methods etc.). When
a newby chooses a guru, he/she should study his/her potential guru VERY carefully. By
the way, some guys have occasionally great performances simply due to errors in
accounting reverse splits of some stocks!! (I found some examples of these errors when
browsing the gurus pages).

Above all, I think than an "ideal" follower should try to share ideas with his/her guru and
try to understand his/her method (mine for instance is a simple stock picking based on
unusual volumes after a trading range) as well as his temporal horizon (mine is a range
of 0-3 trading days).

So performance metrics matter, but there are a number of other parameters that
matter. One of the most important in the market - I think - is a personal factor, i.e.
humility (my latin motto in MarketGuru means "humility kills pride"). We traders
sometimes win and other times lose. Even if we make a lot of trades, what matters is
that the number of times we win is higher that the number of time we lose in the long
run. In this context, the better guru we can find is to find out our own trading method by
studying this crazy market very carefully.

Greetings,
odradek

well spoken my italian friend...

and it would not be because my 8 month performance has been HORRIBLE either... :-)

I'd like to see the added metrics, plus maybe a Sharpe ratio or other risk adjusted metric would be good too.

odradek is bringing in a pretty interesting angle....HOW SHOULD PEOPLE CHOOSE A GURY TO FOLLOW AND WHY. Its sort outside of the scope of this particular thhread, but I think at some point we should put this thread together with ideas to help followers decide what they should be looking at and how to decide which is the guru for them....

I think that having a MAX is a GREAT IDEA! I see many of these guys that started to trade since march 09 and now look like a GURU lol.... makes me wonder if they lost all there real money, and got on this site to prove something to themself.


Monthy,Quarterly,Yearly,YTD and Max (If it was up to me).


CHEERS

An easy way to show risk (volatility) is for people to be able to compare more gurus and indexes graphically (this even has the benefit of showing how gurus cope with different markets) . Even just showing "best month" and "worst month" (biggest "draw back") helps greatly.

double that sounds tough to program, but i love the idea if you coud elaborate...

I don't know how difficult it will be - but in my eyes most of the format is more or less already there - but that is easy for me to say ;-).

You can already, in different time frames, compare your own portfolio graph with "gurus aggregate" and "indexes" in your portfolio chart under the performance tab. (btw I would love to see my individual guru graphs instead of "gurus aggregate" which doesn't say or help me much).

Think of the same chart as you se under your "performance" tab but you combine it with the "guru search" function to generate the list of gurus to choose from for the graphical comparison.

Graphically it becomes much easier to spot volatility and comparing with indexes shows how gurus cope with different invironments.

I'll agree, but I have to admit my bias here is towards conservative picks over the long term plus the occasional speculative short position.

The current system rewards the Atillas a wee much, in my opinion.

Love the feedback guys!
So it's settled, we will calculate your average monthly positions to the MAX. The more history recorded the better the measure of an investor's ability to beat the broad index.
As for the sub discussion of how one should choose a Guru, we are purposely taking our time to learn what works best. Our future plans include a new product that's all about viewing your Guru's trades in relation to your desired goals. It's still early to talk about but we're very excited about it.
Another thing we plan to do in our new design is allow for a very wide range of metrics and stats for the more informed members of our site. My arguments were made only regarding the main widget which is where members get highlights rather than the full performance drill-down.
odradek,
We know of these problematic splits. Please let us know whenever you find such a glitch and we will fix. We're having a heck of a time chasing these down with so many stocks to follow. Our data provider is working to make things more reliable as are we. Please feel free to let us know when you see these errors..
By the way - your followers aren't getting sell orders for STOCKS THEY DON'T OWN in their portfolios. This creates less e-mail's which we think are not relevant.. do you think we're wrong in our logic?, please let me know..
One last note on following Gurs etc..
Notice how well our community ranks it's own members. All you guys are fabulous traders, yet your performances vary greatly. You will find different styles among our Gurus but all are excellent at what they do. This to us is the fascinating side of human algorithms.. can the crowd, in it's wisdom, nominate the best investors for new members to follow?.. so far it seems so. Understanding this algorithm is our biggest passion. We claim that eventually it will be the crowd, not merely the stats which will help people find Gurus right for them.
And in the spirit of odradek's Latin quote, we are humbled by our member's wisdom. Thanks for the comments. All have been written down and all will be considered in future releases.
Cheers,
Sean.

Sounds great!

"By the way - your followers aren't getting sell orders for STOCKS THEY DON'T OWN in their portfolios. This creates less e-mail's which we think are not relevant.. do you think we're wrong in our logic?, please let me know.."

Agree with the less emails part (especially if you are following ellkell ;-) - but perhaps an opt for a summary at end of day would be ok?
E.g. if my Guru chooses company 1, I may opt for the competing company 2 or a broader ETF after looking at some charts and taking risk/reward into account.
(it also gives an idea of where your guru thinks the market is heading.)
"All you guys are fabulous traders"
You apparently haven't looked at my mistreated and abandoned account :-D
(yeah I know the community already discovered that)

Looking forward to your guru choosing system.

Thank you guys, I am satisfied with your explanations :)

Anyway, I know that some followers are actually playing with real money following their
guru's advice, even if they don't actually buy the stock in their "virtual" marketguru
account.

Therefore, it would be helpful if you can add an option for the followers (e.g., "Would you
like to receive all trades alert from your gurus?" yes/no). The "no" option may be helpful
for those following daytraders doing a large amount of trades, thereby avoiding an email
overflow.

I think that this is a great site to share ideas and - above all - to develop and share a
reliable method to survive in this difficult market :)

Cheers,
odradek

yaay!

As per Time Lines: Monthy,Quarterly,Yearly,YTD and Max.

ALSO

I think it would be cool to show Money Lines. To show if the guru withdraw or deposit money. Two reasons

1st - Really fun ;) i.e. some Guru are Up over 200.00% a month it be cool to see.

2nd - One can see if the Guru can manage money/risk, Or justs add more if he or she is holding on to a dead stocks. Its easy to win if one can keep adding money. Unless Ben Bernanke is a Guru lol

Cheers

Hi guys,

Agree with taker212 on Money Lines; however, the system already shows when a guy is
adding/withdrawing cash in his account in the "transaction history" menu. In my opnion,
anyway, it would be helpful to show how much cash the trader/investor has deposited/
withheld and how this influence the final trading performance.

Cheers,
odradek