UBC Election Stock Market
On September 8th, I invested $25 into the Election Stock Market being run by the University of British Columbia for the 2008 Canadian Federal election. When the market closed, at 10PM PDT on Monday evening, I had increased that to $88.70 (I decided to end up with a cash-only position).This was in fact my second foray into the UBC ESM -- I also participated in the market run for the 2006 Federal election, when managed to turn $25 into $93.08. At 272.3%, that was apparently the largest relative gain, and I suspect that my 254.8% gain this year will once again be the largest relative gain (although I'm sure there are many people who will have made larger absolute gains once the final election results arrive and the market is liquidated). I had hoped to do better in this market than in the last one, but this election campaign wasn't anywhere near as interesting as the 2005/06 campaign -- and it's very hard to make money in a market if nothing ever moves.
So what's my strategy? Automatic trading controlled by a script which checks the market conditions every minute. Lots and lots of automatic trading. I don't have statistics available for the 2006 market, but during the 2008 market I (or rather, my scripts) made 2577 trades worth a total of $21077.73; my average gain per share traded was slightly less than a tenth of a cent.
Depending on the results of today's election, there may be another election -- and another election stock market -- before long. I look forward to seeing how I -- and my scripts -- do next time.