Hi Everyone!
If you have any lingering questions about the basics of UpDown or you just enjoy watching cool internet videos, check out our new “How UpDown Works” video on the logged-out home page.
Special thanks to EyeView for making it for us!
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/
The SEC prohibits short selling of 799 financial stocks in order to strengthen investor confidence - and so does UpDown.com.
The list of stocks that cannot be shorted can be found here.
According to a press release issued by the SEC this morning, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said, “The Commission is committed to using every weapon in its arsenal to combat market manipulation that threatens investors and capital markets. The emergency order temporarily banning short selling of financial stocks will restore equilibrium to markets. This action, which would not be necessary in a well-functioning market, is temporary in nature and part of the comprehensive set of steps being taken by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the Congress.”
We’ll keep you posted on any changes regarding these restrictions.
Michael
e made three upgrades to UpDown.com this morning:
(1) We redesigned your Home Page to give you faster access to your portfolio, interesting information on stocks you own, your contest standings, and to other UpDown members.
(2) We added a message board to every contest to improve communications between you and your fellow competitors.
(3) We added a “Sponsored Contests” tab to the Contests section to make sure that you don’t miss out on any official contests with great prizes.
What do you think of these upgrades? Please let us know!
The UpDown Team
e have upgraded our contest feature again. Now you can run your own investing contests against your family, coworkers, and friends at any time on UpDown.com.
Many of you are familiar with fantasy sports and especially fantasy football, the most popular fantasy sport on the web. You have set up a league and competed against your friends and found out who among you was the best football general manager. Now on UpDown, you can conduct your own investing contests with anyone you choose to see who is the best investor. CNBC now has even more reason to call us where “fantasy football meets the trading floor!“
Before this upgrade, you could participate in organized contests on UpDown only if you were a college student, like the thousands competing in the Summer 2008 $10,000 Student Investment Contest. While we will still hold these community-wide contests, we are happy to now provide all UpDown members with the opportunity to compete with whoever they want!
The UpDown Team
e have implemented a new trading rule to make your UpDown.com trading experience even more lifelike.
Our new Clearing Rule restricts actions on portfolio positions until the volume of your trade clears in the real marketplace. For example, if you buy 100,000 shares of a stock, you now have to wait for 100,000 shares of that stock to trade in the real marketplace before you can sell those shares. This will prevent UpDown members from making trades at unrealistic volumes and profiting from small changes in price.
The rule will affect you only if you trade low volume stocks in very high volumes over short periods of time. Most UpDown members will never come across it.
Again, the Clearing Rule is in place to better simulate real-world conditions so you can get the most out of your trading experience on UpDown.
Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about this new rule!
The UpDown Team
e have eliminated pending trades from UpDown! All of the trades in your UpDown portfolio will now execute immediately. You will never again have to wait to act on a position because it is “pending.”
This enhancement to the UpDown platform makes your trading experience much more lifelike. We must still hide the execution price of your trades for 15-20 minutes due to stock exchange regulations, but your cash balance will immediately reflect the real-time price of your trade.
Eliminating pending trades has been the UpDown Community’s most requested enhancement. We are very happy to deliver it to you!
Go to your UpDown portfolio and start trading now!
The UpDown Team
