Check out the “Virtual Ban, Real Problems” article on WSJ.com’s Marketbeat blog featuring UpDown.com and contributions from UpDown members NoProblem, ofekutd, magician24712, and Summer Student Contest Winner YowcephH!

Brendan
UpDown Team

Our real-money payout system has been very unclear and very confusing to many UpDown members. First and foremost, sorry about that. Second, we now have what we believe is a very clear and very straightforward way to show you exactly how much real money you will earn each month on UpDown.

If you visit the Contests tab, you’ll see that you have been automatically entered into the October 2008 $3,000 Monthly Performance Contest. For the month of October, you will be paid according to the amount, ranging from $500 to $0.01, that matches your ranking in this contest. We will repeat this process every month so you always know exactly where you stand and exactly how much money you will earn at the end of the month.

Don’t worry, long term investors! In January we will launch a year-long performance contest (and possibly quarterly performance contests too) that will not put you at a disadvantage and will have payouts much larger than those in the monthly performance contests. Our main goal right now is to finally make crystal clear the amount of real money that each member will earn each month.

What do you think? Please let us know!

Brendan
UpDown Team
brendan@updown.com

With the markets dropping, many portfolios are below $1,000,000, and one of the most popular requests from members is to reset portfolios to $1,000,000. We’ve done this on an ad-hoc basis when the requests come in.

We’ve decided to automate this so you can reset your portfolio yourself. Just look for the “Reset Portfolio” link next to your portfolio total.

Go to your portfolio to check it out: www.updown.com/portfolio/

Another crazy week has begun! To help you sail through these stormy times, here is a list of the stocks bought and sold most by the Top 100 investors on UpDown.com from market close on Friday, October 17th, through market close on Friday, October 24th.

Most Bought:

1. JPM - JP Morgan Chase & Co.

2. RIMM - Research in Motion, Ltd.

3. GGP - General Growth Properties Inc.

4. BAC - Bank of America Corp.

5. GOOG - Google Inc.

Most Sold:

1. QID - Proshares Ultrashort QQQ ETF

2. WB - Wachovia Corp.

3. FXP - Proshares UL FTSE/X ETF

4. COF - Capital One Financial Corp.

5. EEV - Proshares Ultrashort MSCI ETF
It’s good to know that there are still some great investors making money out there. Good luck this week!

The UpDown Team

Check out the Stock Trading Meets Fantasy Football post on CNN.com’s SciTechBlog about UpDown.com and how the financial crisis has inspired many people to develop their own investing skills on the site!

Brendan
UpDown Team

Hi Everyone,

Sorry about the trading issues that you have had to deal with over the past few days. We understand how frustrating they have been for you, especially for the traders in the Community.

I want to let you know how I can help you if you entered a trade and believe that it did not execute at the correct price. I can manually change the price entries in our system for you to make them right again. Send me an email at brendan@updown.com with a specific list of the symbol, number of shares, incorrect price, and correct price of each trade you feel is wrong. Unfortunately, I cannot enter a trade that you said that you intended to make, but I can make sure that the prices at which your trades executed were correct.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any more questions.

Brendan
UpDown Team

Trading is back up and running for all users and portfolios are accurate.

For some of you we had to roll your portfolio back to its holdings as of Friday afternoon. You may need to go back in and execute some trades you made late in the day Friday.

Thanks for your patience during this issue. We’ll work to make sure this does not happen again.

Well, we managed to fix the trades that were placed on bad quote data, but in the process, many users ended up with excess cash in their accounts.

Until we can fix this issue, we’re going to halt trading for only those users with the cash issues, so that they do not trade with it.

Obviously, having extra cash in a portfolio improves performace numbers, which is why you see members in contests and the site in general with much higher gains than usual.

Please e-mail me directly if you have any questions about his issue: joe@updown.com.

Some of you may have noticed problems on the site starting at about 2:00 p.m. ET on Friday, October 16. We received incorrect quote data, and this was applied to trades, portfolio gain/loss calculations, and contest standings.

We have turned trading back on. Trades will all be executed at correct prices, but we will not be able to reflect this on the site until the problem is fixed.

Also, performance, gain/loss, contest standings, and other portfolio related calculations will be incorrect.

We’re working to fix this problem as quickly as possible.

Here is a list of the stocks bought and sold most by the top 100 investors on UpDown from market close on Friday, October 3rd, through market close on Friday, October 10th.

Most Bought:

1. MS - Morgan Stanley

2. MER - Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

3. GLD - SPDR Gold Trust ETF

4. ABK - Ambac Financial Group

5. NCC - National City Corp.

Most Sold:

1. JPM - JP Morgan Chase & Co.

2. C - Citigroup Inc.

3. SDS - Proshares Ultrashort S&P 500

4. GOOG - Google Inc.

5. CSIQ - Canadian Solar Inc.

The markets have opened up with big gains so far on this Monday morning. How long do you think this rally will last this week?

The UpDown Team