Fantasy Fund

Hear Hear!

My own fantasy fund mirrors more or less exactly what I'm doing in real life -its actually I find a very good discipline to put your choices in front of a bigger audience.

I've also found half a dozen stocks over the past 18 months from looking at others choices - particularly some of the better performing contributors .

Thirded!

It's sadly underused.

Fourthed ?

Though I suspect the use of funds is more common than we can see as the tables have been limited to 6 pages for some time - perhaps S'pedia can extend the visibility of all compliant funds in the tables ?

I am no longer able to access my Fantasy Fund?


is there a problem????

In reply to p3dr036, post #4

Hi, we're updating the site with some changes, and it's unfortunately caused a few issues. Please bear with us.

If possible, please use the contact form to notify us of any bugs you experience.

http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/page/contacting-stockopedia/

Best, M

There IMO a few things that need sorting before Fantasy Funds can really take off.

1) Fix the inability to cope with stock splits and other non-linear share capital affecting events.

2) Account for dividends. In my fund I initially went for a lot of stocks with divis, but after about 18 months without receiving anything got a bit peeved and switched out to more speculative stuff. This was the system forcing me to do something which I didn't want to do. That's no basis for anything.

3) Reflect real-life liquidity constraints better. It is risible that you can buy or sell say 5m shares in XYZ AIM tiddler at the quoted price. We all know that in reality you would be facing a large premium or discount.

3a) The trading platform ought to take into the account the difference between order book and MM stocks.

4) Include foreign markets. My real-life portfolio is 100% invested outside the UK market so my fund on here is therefore something I don't take very seriously. I have little interest in London stocks and it's hard to generate much enthusiasm. OK so I am probably a-typical but on the other hand I do know that many people while being mostly London focused will also have a dabble overseas.

5) The annualised ranking table, which ought to be the most important one, is rendered useless by incorporating funds that have only been around for a few weeks and have in that time "gotten lucky" thus generating silly CAGR numbers. There should be a minimum time in existence filter of a year.

Now, I have no idea how commercially feasible it would be, but Interactive Brokers have a dummy account thing which might be of use here. The way it works is that your orders are actually matched against the real-life real-time order book. Of course your order does not then add or take from the order book but what it does mean is that you get as near a real "fill" as is possible.

Their platform covers most global stock markets and futures and options exchanges. I do wonder that since they allow you to use this dummy platform without even being a customer they might be open to suggestions for a more commercial arrangement.

You can see the thing in action by going to the Demo section of their website. Oh, and there is a Java API available for non-interactive use.

http://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk

Another major annoyance is the inability to sell and buy immediately. The sale has to be "done" (usually at least 15 mins) before the system shows you as having cash and thus able to accept a Buy. Most frustrating when you want to move quickly on a developing situation.

Another couple of points for the list would be to pull in data for warrants and subs (such as HGTS) and Guernsey-listed entities (such as BSRT).

Also, the price data being pulled in for the Fantasy Fund is different to that for my own portfolio I've created here i.e. this morning my FF showed LOQ was 139.50 whilst my personal Folio showed it at 137 (a greater time delay than the FF price).

The inability to get inside the spread also means I don't bother with stocks with very wide spreads.

Please could AZ Electronic Materials (AZEM) be added - entered FTSE 250 around 6 months ago?
Thanks,
BLB

Another major annoyance is the inability to sell and buy immediately.

Folk who use TDW will appreciate the game bringing in some elements from the real world ;-#))

I had a holding in Collins Stewart (CLST) in my fantasy portfolio, but the ticker has changed due to a corporate action and the holding has disappeared :-(

Any chance you could add a new holding in Collins Stewart Hawkpoint (CSHP) please?

I think it would also be a good idea to show inception and annualised figures against the benchmark. Some people have started their funds at unusually favourable times, flattering their performance. It would be nice to see people add commentaries as to why they bought and sold their shares.

BTW, I am very interested in other people's Fantasy Funds, it is a good feature. I have it mind to work through all of the funds, although I end up rejecting many of them because they seem to be sector bets. You guys like your commodities in buckets.

Hi Chaps, we'll sort out CLST . More generally, we are in the process of reworking the Fantasy Funds and fixing the various bugs once and for all, so apologies in the interim. There will be lots of big changes coming as part of us rolling out the PRO product - hopefully by the end of July or thereabouts, all will be revealed but it's a good time to suggest features as we may be able to add them as part of the redesign work we are doing.

In reply to Murakami, post #13

Should Banco Santander be available in the Fantasy portfolios?

It seems they've had a secondary listing on the LSE (ISIN ES0113900J37, Yahoo BNC.L) since about 2005.