How brokers may make money out of a contest
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thread: How brokers may make money out of a contest

  1. #1
    Member
    33

    How brokers may make money out of a contest

    I was checking the outcomes of January 2008 contest and I believed that in fact, a contest is a money making machine, mainly when the broker trades against you.

    Check the snap shot below:



    Well, see how beginning the 7th, all traders are below 100% gain.
    Starting 10th, they are under 60% gain.

    Assuming that the broker is trading gainst you.

    Let us try to appraise the 'price' of the contest:

    Considering the overall concept that more than 90% of traders get rid of money, and since there's 237 participant, 90% will signifies that more than 213 of these traders are losing money.

    We can safely enough presume that we've got 200 traders which are losing money, and probably 50 of them have blown their account (We can see in the attachment which the previous ten have lost more than 99% of the account), so only 37 (or less) are winning money.

    The prizes are:

    1st $3,000.00
    2nd $1,500.00
    3rd $750.00
    4th $500.00
    5th $250.00
    Complete: 6,000$

    Per the rule, you need only 500$ on your live account to enter the contest. I believe the traders which is going to be in the up with more than 200% return in less than a month won't be risking more than this sum. And let us assume that the traders that have lost all their equilibrium have only risked 500$.

    Hence the broker is going to need to pay (as they are trading the other hand) at the end of the contest:

    To the first ten participants:
    4.10*500 2.70*500 1.90*500 1.30*500 1.30*500 1.20*500 0.80*500 0.70*500 0.60*500 0.60*500 = ~20,000 $

    For the 27 other supposed positive gain if considered at 30% gain:
    27*0.3*500 = ~4,000 $

    So the total 'cost' of the game is 6,000 20,000 4,000 = 30,000 $

    Let us try to appraise the 'earnings' of the contest:

    200 traders are losing money.
    We see in the broker announcement which the past have lost more than 99% of the account. We may safely assume that 50 trader has lost more than 90%, and let us suppose that 150 has lost an average of 50%, we'd have an 'income' of:

    50*500 150*250 = 25,000 37500 = 62,500 $

    So the return from the contest would be something similar to:
    62,500 - 30,000 = 32,500$ 500 disperse times all the trade done.

    Of course that is only a simulation, but I have the impression which the broker is getting much more from that money making machine 'contest', as I attempted to place all my calculation on the safe side.

    Well, as I noticed in the 6 months back printed statements, the amount of contestant is growing each month... Just extrapolate in couple months with 500, 1000 participants and more...

  2. #2
    Senior Member pochis's Avatar
    215
    I thought all this was apparent. Oh well....
    It is, damn brokers

  3. #3
    Member
    33
    Just for info, they've more than 1000 contestant for August month!

    Let us see how many are still in in 10 times

  4. #4
    Member
    33
    March competition with 444 traders.

    But the 444th trader's result are really odd: -174% !!!

    And me that had been thiking that with Forex brokers, the maximum amout that may be lost was the entire equilibrium

    Below some odd result for march 2008 competition.

    Attached a transcript of the conversation I had with the help when asking about the adverse balance of the traders.


    https://www.cliqforex.com/attachment...2413045774.doc

  5. #5
    Member
    33
    March competition with 444 traders.

    However, the 444th trader's outcome are really odd: -174% !!!

    And me who was thiking that with Forex brokers, the maximum amout that may be lost was the entire balance


  6. #6
    Interesting thread. Quite obvious stuff, still interesting to see your calculations haniam )

    Those Fxsol Standings are ill. If I'm not wrong, were not those traders in the top 3 since the start of the competition? . . .Or at just Zheng. He has to be great if he did not go bust so far.

  7. #7
    Member
    33
    3.8 percent at rank 85 for Feb

    ^^
    Thank you Puppy to your input.
    Taking into consideration the new info, here the updated estimated payoff if you trade against most of participants:

    Traders A: You'd lose them against around 6500$ and pay them 6000$ prizes
    Traders B: 3.81% lt; 11-85lt; 156% you'd lose from them around 13000$ Traders C: 0% lt; 85-115lt; 3.8 percent you'd lose against them approximately 200$
    Traders D: -50% lt; 115-199 lt; 0% you will win approximately 5500$
    Traders E: -99.46 percentlt; 200-245 lt; -50 percent you will win approximately 8500$
    Traders F: -99.9lt; 264-433 lt; 99.47% you will win 46700$

    To get a total win of 46700 8500 5500-150-13000-6500-6000 = 35000$

    Plus all the spread. If we believe every that the mean open close quantity of contestant is 10 minilots, and also the ordinary spread could be 5 (Mot traders who tries to win use GBP pairs to their volatility), they'd do an additional 5 x 10 x 433 = 21000$ at spread...

  8. #8
    3.8% at Ranking 85 for Feb

    ^^

  9. #9
    Member
    33
    There used to be monthly contest at FXCM before I entered Forex in 2006.

    I discovered that Chinese traders were consistently on the Top 5 in FXCM's contest also.

    Either:
    1. Chinese are good traders,
    2. Or plain lucky
    3. Or simply have more traders involved, ie, law of average.

    Im biased towards #3.
    FXCM contest is still effective, http://javascript"</b>:void(0); , however they moved the outcomes to DailyFX forum. They put minimum information so statistics would be rather difficult to get.

    I do agree with you about Chinese traders numbers (1/4 of overall ground population!) , but I believe that they have an advantage based on their culture: They work a lot and they want to make it. We can see this in the Chinese extraordinary booming these last decades,

    I participated in another contest (Managing a venture production line) within my Management Business Adminiion research and they did have lot of contestant from China that make it to the top.

    This century might be under the Chinese new universe invasion...

  10. #10
    There used to be monthly competition at FXCM before I entered Forex in 2006.

    I noticed that Chinese traders were consistently on the Top 5 in FXCM's competition too.

    Either:
    1. Chinese are good traders,
    2. Or plain lucky
    3. Or just have more traders involved, ie, law of average.

    Im biased towards #3.

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