| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
| Japan | China | Italy | France | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wed, Jan 24 | 12,857.00 | -662.50 | -625.00 | 0.00 |
| Thu, Jan 25 | -15,208.25 | -4,876.56 | 1,406.25 | -50.31 |
| Fri, Jan 26 | -20,093.31 | -10,935.80 | 487.50 | 6,603.31 |
| Mon, Jan 29 | 4,436.14 | -1,659.67 | -7,377.97 | 26,746.14 |
| Tue, Jan 30 | -18,683.34 | -18,167.97 | -3,910.16 | 26,904.97 |
| Wed, Jan 31 | -106,877.08 | -2,936.05 | -2,734.12 | 24,529.22 |
| Thurs, Feb 1 | The last day's standings will not be posted here; the final results will be announced at the closing party. |
|||
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 23:49:10 -0500
To: olympians@ai.mit.edu
Subject: VSM Results
To most anyone holding tech stocks or mutual funds recently, this
year's results seem all but "virtual." Every team ventured into the
red territory during the event (and some seemed to enjoy being
there...).
Japan's trading record was certainly the most impressive of all: with
vigorous and active trading of no fewer than 50 different symbols by a
large number of team members, they managed to lose roughly $200,000 in
only a week and a half of trading, demonstrating yet again that
options speculation is a great way to quickly get rid of that annoying
money. However, this does not set a VSM record for greatest losses;
better luck next year, Japan.
However frenetic Japan's trading was, France's proved to be even more
unergetic. I've never seen so many trades of only one share of stock;
all their activity could probably have been conducted with change
recovered from the 7ai sofas. Yet they had a broad base for this
minimalist trading; in what must have been a concerted participation
drive in one particular hour, about a third of their team each sold
one share of a stock. In the end all but 3 team members ended up
making a trade, while $20,000 of their $24,000 gain was made in a
single transaction (and the remaining $4,000 in one other). This
"hands-off" strategy proved to be a winner this year, keeping them in
positive territory for nearly the whole event (in stark contrast to
the other teams).
Italy mirrored France's "hands off the market" strategy, more broadly
interpreting it as a "hands off the VSM" policy. Only six members
traded (and interestingly, they never sold anything... must be that
"buy and hold" school of thought).
China had an impressive final-hour showing, pushing through the
break-even barrier only on the last day to end up with $24,000
additional in the bank. With widespread participation and active
trading, they almost caught up to first place -- if they'd had 2 more
traders (or France 2 fewer), China would have earned the top slot.
PLACE TEAM FINAL GAIN PEOPLE SCORE
===== ====== =========== ====== ==========
1 France 24,150.62 25 274,150.62
2 China 24,681.14 23 254,681.14
3 Italy -3,616.44 6 56,383.56
4 Japan -195,751.81 21 14,248.19
Nati Srebro wins the award for "most principled stock selection" for
buying 100 shares of National Instruments (Nasdaq:NATI).
This event brought to you by the word "volatility" and all the
negative numbers.
--grg