Anybody want to take on the 2015 Stock Picking Contest

[Snow Leopard]

After 3 years I would really like to take a break from running the contest.

If no one else is willing to step up then there probably will not be a contest.

You get to do it your own way.

Best Wishes
Paper Tiger

[MAC]

That is a shame, I’d just like to say Tiger that all your good efforts in managing the contest have probably not gone unnoticed by most.

[Deej5]

I come home early from the pub Friday nights to check my position on the board. Highlight of the week! Without this comp I'll have no choice but to stay at the pub longer. Thanks for all you've done PT you're a star. I hope someone else takes this on .. I hate the pub.

[robbo24]

Please don't leave PT, your comical and sometimes hurtful comments [even when directed at me :D:D:D:D:D:D:D] are a ST Forum convention.

[BFG]

Sparky will come back and host for a year? :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[couta1]

Sparky will come back and host for a year? :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Or maybe our old woodland friend:D

[The Grinch]

Thanks PT, its been bloody great.

another vote for that woodland friend.

TG

[BFG]

Or maybe our old woodland friend:D

Pretty sure that overgrown woodland mammal is dead and buried deep in the forest (I heard Robbo has a mean swing with a brick), but a hoof may still be sticking out of the ground...

[klid]

Hmm, I miiiight be able to work something up but tell me... how to you get the dividends and factor all that in to the equation? And other random things like that. Would that be really laborious or is there some easy way to do that? I think I could do all the rest of it pretty efficiently.

[iceman]

I share the sentiments expressed by others and thank you for your great work over the 3 years PT, regularly enhanced by your humorous comments. We all know this is quite time consuming and appreciate your effort greatly.
Alo thanks to klid for showing an interest in filling your rather large boots !

[nzspeak]

I would nominate Roger but I think he just caught Ebola- told him not to fly Air NZ.

[iceman]

I would nominate Roger but I think he just caught Ebola- told him not to fly Air NZ.

Hey be easy on our mate Roger. Any increase in his current stress levels could mean his next Air NZ flight will be a domestic one to the nearest Summerset resthome :ohmy:

[couta1]

Hey be easy on our mate Roger. Any increase in his current stress levels could mean his next Air NZ flight will be a domestic one to the nearest Summerset resthome :ohmy:
At least that way he would be able to enjoy a beer with Julian and Norah at the weekly happy hour. PS-Word on the street is that Roger was a Jetstar flyer whilst holding AirNZ shares:eek2:

[psychic]

An excellent PR opportunity for one of the Brokers surely? Craigs have clearly benefited from all the advice gleaned from S/T and could do it effortlessly. :)
But thank you PT for running.

[airedale]

Great work over the years, Tiger, and Klid if you take it on then a simpler version would be to run it as a pure capital gain competition.

[Jay]

Yes good work PT and agree with Airedale, do not have to include dividends to keep it simpler.
Could introduce something like change one pick at the half way mark or something

[Beagle]

At least that way he would be able to enjoy a beer with Julian and Norah at the weekly happy hour. PS-Word on the street is that Roger was a Jetstar flyer whilst holding AirNZ shares:eek2:

It was all Forest's idea lol. But seriously the last flight of the day home from Chch was Jetstar so it meant heaps more drinking time with our southern friends...
Hmmm, drinking with Norah and Julian, I wonder what that would do to my blood pressure level :scared:
Thanks for your efforts PT.

[klid]

Well you see, I am a web programmer. I think I can make a fully automated and live version of this whole shibam. The only thing I can't think of how to automate is the dividend/split/random stuff like that. So that's my blocker at the moment...

I guess you could get an overview of the dividends and enter them in manually -- is there anywhere to see upcoming dividends across the board? I only know of asbsecurities.co.nz where it lists the upcoming ones but that is for the current week only.

The gold for me would be if there was a website you could go to and see the dividends for a particular stock. Then I could automate a request to this address, grab the dividend data, wack it into the central database that already contains the price, and work it all out based on that.

Something like this, which is what I would intend on using to get the live price:
https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=peb (https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=nze:peb)
I can make a script go there every now and then, extract the price, and store it in my/our system. How to do with dividends? :)

Actually just thought of a semi-solution. I will start working on something to see the feasibility of it all!

[pierre]

[QUOTE=klid;514153]

Something like this, which is what I would intend on using to get the live price:
https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=peb (https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=nze:peb)QUOTE]

Yep clicked on the link Klid - and all that makes complete sense to me. Cant understand why everyone thinks it's so hard- lol!

Really appreciate your offer to keep the great work going that PT has done so well, for so long and with great humour. Thanks PT.

[Snow Leopard]

Well you see, I am a web programmer. I think I can make a fully automated and live version of this whole shibam. The only thing I can't think of how to automate is the dividend/split/random stuff like that. So that's my blocker at the moment...

I guess you could get an overview of the dividends and enter them in manually -- is there anywhere to see upcoming dividends across the board? I only know of asbsecurities.co.nz where it lists the upcoming ones but that is for the current week only.

The gold for me would be if there was a website you could go to and see the dividends for a particular stock. Then I could automate a request to this address, grab the dividend data, wack it into the central database that already contains the price, and work it all out based on that.

Something like this, which is what I would intend on using to get the live price:
https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=peb (https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=nze:peb)
I can make a script go there every now and then, extract the price, and store it in my/our system. How to do with dividends? :)

Actually just thought of a semi-solution. I will start working on something to see the feasibility of it all!

Hi

I got the dividend data from the NZX website at
https://nzx.com/markets/NZSX and https://nzx.com/markets/NZAX- it is straight forward for a programmer to scrap the data from the html.
If/when the new NZX exchange fires up then that would have to be coped with.

Dividends I factored in by [effectively] buying new shares with the post-tax (at 30%) dividend amount at the closing price of the ex-div data.

Difficult bits of running the contest, for me, were:
Inputting the original entries and chasing those who did not meet the rules and then the rare events such as splits, etc.

If klid wants to PM me we can talk technical with out boring everybody else.

Best Wishes
Paper Tiger

[klid]

Thats cool. Yeah can do ASX but depends about getting dividends for them all with ease.

I would get the people to enter their choices themselves through a form.

Anyway ill have a go and see

[bunter]

I use this http://investexcel.net/multiple-stock-quote-downloader-for-excel/

And adjust for divs manually using snoopy's method.

One problem is Yahoo seems to round prices to the nearest cent.

[Snow Leopard]

Something like this, which is what I would intend on using to get the live price:
https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=peb (https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=nze:peb)QUOTE]

Yep clicked on the link Klid - and all that makes complete sense to me. Cant understand why everyone thinks it's so hard- lol!

Really appreciate your offer to keep the great work going that PT has done so well, for so long and with great humour. Thanks PT.

All will become clear: http://json.org/

Best Wishes
Paper Tiger

[Snow Leopard]

Thats cool. Yeah can do ASX but depends about getting dividends for them all with ease.

I would get the people to enter their choices themselves through a form.

Anyway ill have a go and see

You may be treading on jennym/WizAlvin turf with the ASX

afr provide a weekly update of upcoming dividends at http://www.afr.com/share_tables/ in either .xls or .csv.
The gotcha is that the values can change week to week but the latest value is the most accurate.

Best Wishes
Paper Tiger

[Snoopy]

Great work over the years, Tiger, and Klid if you take it on then a simpler version would be to run it as a pure capital gain competition.

Ditto on the thanks for the great work put in by the Tiger.

I use the competition each year not to try and win but to keep track of my actual portfolio. Traditionally I think something like 50% of NZ sharemarket returns have come from dividends. So leaving dividends out would be a major setback to a diviidend seeking mutt like me, and most real investors. I probably would not enter again because a competition run just on capital gain would not correlate at all well with my actual returns. And it also would not correlate with the NZX 50, which does include dividends. So there would be no way to know how you were doing relative to the market.

One suggestion that might save some work though. I think it was PT that introduced the weekly update. Previous competitions were only updated monthly which IMO was perfectly satisfactory. 12 updates a years sounds less onerous than 52.

SNOOPY

[zs_cecil]

Well you see, I am a web programmer. I think I can make a fully automated and live version of this whole shibam. The only thing I can't think of how to automate is the dividend/split/random stuff like that. So that's my blocker at the moment...

I guess you could get an overview of the dividends and enter them in manually -- is there anywhere to see upcoming dividends across the board? I only know of asbsecurities.co.nz where it lists the upcoming ones but that is for the current week only.

The gold for me would be if there was a website you could go to and see the dividends for a particular stock. Then I could automate a request to this address, grab the dividend data, wack it into the central database that already contains the price, and work it all out based on that.

Something like this, which is what I would intend on using to get the live price:
https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=peb (https://www.google.com/finance/info?client=ig&q=nze:peb)
I can make a script go there every now and then, extract the price, and store it in my/our system. How to do with dividends? :)

Actually just thought of a semi-solution. I will start working on something to see the feasibility of it all!

Hi Klid, the NZX website provides very detailed information that I think is very suitable for data crawling.

For example:

https://www.nzx.com/markets/NZSX/securities/HNZ
https://www.nzx.com/markets/NZSX/securities/HNZ/dividends

[zs_cecil]

Ooooops... Just checked the term and condition from NZX website, it has following statements:

In particular you agree not to:
a. damage or harm the NZX Site, or any underlying or connected network or system;
b. use a harvesting bot, robot, spider, scraper, or other unauthorised automated means to
access the NZX Site or content featured on it for any purpose;

.......:(

[waikare]

Thanks Paper Tiger for your input over the last three years much very appreciated, I haven’t done all that well, but look forward to viewing my results each week, which I record.

Cheers

[klid]

OH! oh well; cecil - they can take a jump in a lake. :) or sue me...

[zs_cecil]

OH! oh well; cecil - they can take a jump in a lake. :) or sue me...
You will be fine. Doors are always open. They would warmly invite you to stay longer and pay rent. ;)

[klid]

I've had a bit of a play with making something and it's coming along nicely! So I will be able to get something together.

[bunter]

Just wondering Klid - would you be creating a table of gross dividends with (say) dates on one axis and stocks on the other? And if so, and chance of posting it here as a spreadsheet when updating? I'm doing this manually now.

[klid]

Potentially, not sure about dividends yet.

I have two questions. I got the stocks from here:
https://www.nzx.com/markets/nzsx/indices/all (https://www.nzx.com/markets/nzax/indices/all)
https://www.nzx.com/markets/nzax/securities

1) Are these all the stocks?

2) Can it be decided, perhaps now or soon, which of these stocks to exclude from the competition. Can it be ones under $10m cap as at some date around about now?

[bunter]

Suggest using the rules on post 2 of the 2014 contest thread as a starting point then doing whatever you feel like!
It it were me I'd make the mcap limit 30 million and not allow changes.

And yes they look like all the stocks to me - delete any part paids (MELCA).

[klid]

I've put something up - http://www.stocktastic.co.nz/ (https available but self-signed certificate will need accepting).

Account needs to be registered (valid email address - link is sent there), can then access the entry form where you submit / edit selections.

What I need:
- Some testing etc done, you can submit entries now and they will remain, and are editable up until 2015.
- To get the rules sorted, see the rules page.
- To enter in all the stocks - at the moment I just have the top 50, and to work out the minimum market cap of stocks for the contest.. (30m)?

[Snow Leopard]

So less than five minutes after entering I am first :t_up: over 500% up :eek2:.

Think there might be something wrong there ;).

6533

Best Wishes
Paper Tiger

[klid]

I should have mentioned I set the start prices for the year for everything to $2. You can click on the stocks on that page to see a popup box with info. Take WBC/XRO out of your picks! :)
reordered to show in order of rank

[Snow Leopard]

I should have mentioned I set the start prices for the year for everything to $2. You can click on the stocks on that page to see a popup box with info. Take WBC/XRO out of your picks! :)
reordered to show in order of rank

Left XRO/WBC in and swapped in ANZ/MFT/POT so now have the five highest share prices.

One way to pick stocks :D.

Best Wishes
Paper Tiger

[BlackPeter]

Had a quick trial ... and looks in my view quite well done. Great stuff!

Application notices double registration (GOOD). Obviously - no check against the share trader database ... i.e. people could (and can) register under a different name than the one they use on sharetrader. People could as well register as some other share trader participant (if they are quick). But than - who cares ... and if somebody steals the name of a sharetrader participant, than I assume there is a complaint process in place (didn't try to send a message) ;)

Just one small safety warning: Not sure, how good people typically are in safeguarding their email / password combination. Given that this is presumably just another unsecured database - PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU PICK FOR THIS APPLICATION A PASSWORD WHICH YOU DON'T USE FOR ANY OTHER SENSITIVE APPLICATION together with your registered email. Just wondering, maybe this is as well a hint worthwhile to put onto the entry form?

I like the drop down lists - prevent people from entering nonsensical values (I checked ;)). Obviously the drop down lists still need some effort to populate. Some (or should I say most ...) of my favourite stocks are not yet available :(.

To avoid the "PaperTiger effect" - just wondering, whether it would be lots of effort to re-initialise the base line values with something more sensible than $2 each? Given that you need after the start of the contest anyway to regularly read out the stock values ... maybe this would be an opportunity to test this mechanism before the contest begins (just don't forget to stop the reinitialisation after Dec 31)?

Ah yes - just wondering - what is the reason to increase the minimum market cap? If it saves you lots of work, than obviously, go with it, but if its just a handful more entries ... why not allow them?

Re de-listing of companies ... I believe we need to allow people in this case to enter a new candidate (based on the stock price at the time of entry). Given that this is hopefully just an exception - maybe it would be acceptable to do these changes manually.

Anyway - great stuff ... Thank You.

[cyclist]

Ah yes - just wondering - what is the reason to increase the minimum market cap? If it saves you lots of work, than obviously, go with it, but if its just a handful more entries ... why not allow them?


Worked nicely for me. Thanks clid, and those helping behind the scenes. Excellent idea to automate it like this.

I agree with BlackPeter regarding the market cap. $10m seems reasonable. You could perhaps set a cutoff date for the market cap. e.g. stocks will be included if they have a market cap > $10m (or whatever you choose) as at COB on (say) 12/12/2014.

Anyway, great work. Thanks for your efforts.

[cyclist]

You can click on the stocks on that page to see a popup box with info.

Another suggestion. The info you show in the popup would be useful in a table of all stocks on a separate tab, for quick reference.

(Having said that, may just be enough to attract unwelcome attention from NZX, so perhaps not?).

p.s. how is the overall % change calculated? Mine is showing as 0%, but overall it seems to be a gain based on the $2 start price for each.

[klid]

It's running on Drupal. So the passwords are salted (I think?) and hashed, then stored in the DB.
I think the main security thing to be conscious is submitting your password over unencrypted connections, but you're doing that every time you log into this site so yeah, but with stocktastic you can go via HTTPS if you want to, and I may get a proper signed certificate too.

Also you dont have to set a password if you dont want to you can just use the one time login link :)
Cyclist it is a good idea and I will do something like that.

No worry about NZX, not using them whatsoever. I am getting the stock data from Yahoo! Finance API.

Happy to keep the 10m cap, or whatever, I just need to know all the stocks to add, not sure how to find that. Theres nowhere I can see a list of ALL NZX stocks by cap :(?

[cyclist]

I just added a p.s. to my earlier post, but you may not see it since you have already posted again. p.s. is as follows:

p.s. how is the overall % change calculated? Mine is showing as 0%, but overall it seems to be a gain based on the $2 start price for each.

p.s.s. experimented with changing one of my picks. It still shows me with 0% gain. The view I am seeing has me at the top of the ranking list, but the ranking field is blank.

[klid]

p.s. how is the overall % change calculated? Mine is showing as 0%, but overall it seems to be a gain based on the $2 start price for each.

p.s.s. experimented with changing one of my picks. It still shows me with 0% gain. The view I am seeing has me at the top of the ranking list, but the ranking field is blank.
Thanks - Yeah it is fetching prices and updating rankings once every... maybe 3 hours or so. I will make it hourly and I will make it so when you submit/modify entries it recalculates you straight away.

[percy]

Is it possible to add AWF,DPC and PGW to the stock selection?

[BlackPeter]

Happy to keep the 10m cap, or whatever, I just need to know all the stocks to add, not sure how to find that. Theres nowhere I can see a list of ALL NZX stocks by cap :(?

Hi Klid - this seems to be a list of all NZX listed companies (at least does it contain all I would be interested in picking):

https://www.nzx.com/markets/nzax/indices/all

Not sure about where (easily) to find the market cap. Personally I could live with just all NZX companies being part of the competition. If however somebody feels strong about excluding the smallest companies (I suppose to prevent people from manipulating the contest?), than they could volunteer to manually exclude the below cap companies at an agreed deadline.

If nobody else volunteers and if deemed necessary, than I would be prepared to do that. Looks like a less than a one hour job to me ...

[klid]

- Added all the stocks over $10m market cap, I can't seem to retrieve data for these: NEW. NZS. PRC. WIN. WSI. ZIN. - Anyone know about these? Can I drop them?
- Stock prices and all calculations done hourly.
- If you enter the competition or modify your entry, your overall percentage is recalculated straight away - along with the rankings

It would be good to have a few people I can give the ability to edit the stock details - like putting in the dividends etc, as currently not grabbing them in any way.

[noodles]

- Added all the stocks over $10m market cap, I can't seem to retrieve data for these: NEW. NZS. PRC. WIN. WSI. ZIN. - Anyone know about these? Can I drop them?

We don't want to be reminded of those stocks! Leave them out

[klid]

OK they're gone, not sure about these SmartFONZ SmartMIDZ, SmartMOZY, SmartOZZY smartTENZ ones, are they legit?

At the moment the stocks only have 16 characters in their names, for some silly reason that's all I can retrieve. My plan is to manually update them once the stock list is final and then stop retrieving the names at that point and just retrieve prices.

cyclist I have a toto about a custom page showing all stocks and their % changes, and perhaps the movement for the day etc too.

[BlackPeter]

Just had another look at the drop down lists. Most smaller caps above 10M seem to be now part of the drop down list. Question - what happened to BRL, though? Its current market cap is 28.5M (at 3 cents SP).

Re your question for volunteers: if you run short of volunteers to edit dividend info etc, than I am happy to help based on the assumption that we talk about a shared task.

[BlackPeter]

OK they're gone, not sure about these SmartFONZ SmartMIDZ, SmartMOZY, SmartOZZY smartTENZ ones, are they legit?



depends what you call legit ... they are real existing passive ASB funds (based on a selection of other shares). Not sure, whether we need them in the competition, though. I am unlikely to pick any of them - and can't remember to have seen any of them nominated in previous contests by any other participant. Them missing might not be noticed. Your call.

[Vaygor1]

Just signed up. Thanks Klid (and supporters) … and PT/Lizard for all to-date in previous years.

Looking forward to the forthcoming year's comp.

Can we make Market Cap $10M, but to include any share that reached over $10M during 2014 ???
I understand this might mean a manual entry of 3 or 4 shares into the drop down list.
I would love to add ALF. Current market cap about $8.5M. Has had market cap over $10M recently but can't see it getting up there again until early 2015 (assuming they don't go broke first).

[klid]

Question - what happened to BRL, though? Its current market cap is 28.5M (at 3 cents SP).

Re your question for volunteers: if you run short of volunteers to edit dividend info etc, than I am happy to help based on the assumption that we talk about a shared task.
Don't know, it wasn't on the Google list - I've added it.
I Need to work out what will need to be done, if I can get the dividends in there automated then it won't be much.


depends what you call legit ... they are real existing passive ASB funds (based on a selection of other shares).
Cool, removed.


Can we make Market Cap $10M, but to include any share that reached over $10M during 2014 ???
I guess we could, if that's a good idea. But what else did? I assume Energy Mad (currently at about 6) was well over at some stage.



I've set the year start price to the current price now, so everyone is on 0%, that suddenly doesn't apply any more from the "close time".

I guess it's pretty much ready to accept entries from everyone now.

What I can do is have it run just like the current ones where there is a post on here updated weekly with the results, but they're also available live on the site.

The entries - people can post just like they do currently and I can enter them in manually, or they can self-service.

[klid]

Another suggestion. The info you show in the popup would be useful in a table of all stocks on a separate tab, for quick reference.
Made this, in the top nav as "stocks" - http://www.stocktastic.co.nz/stocks (https://www.stocktastic.co.nz/stocks)

[cyclist]

Made this, in the top nav as "stocks" - http://www.stocktastic.co.nz/stocks (https://www.stocktastic.co.nz/stocks)
Very nice. Its all looking very polished.
Thanks

[noodles]

As of yesterday, a new stock to add: EVO - Evolve Education

Nice work on the website.

[Baa_Baa]

Well done Klid, your site looks great! Nice work. :t_up:

[Beagle]

Well done Klid, your site looks great! Nice work. :t_up:

+1 nice work, well done.

[janner]

Very nice. Its all looking very polished.
Thanks

Yes.. It is looking good..

Oh !!.. Noticed that PT has hit the blocks running this year :-)))))

Think that he now doe's not have any restraints on him.. ( favouritism Nepotism .. Call it what you want ).

He could be worth watching ..

Thanks PT for your past great efforts :-))

Now.. How do i put percy straight on here ???

[pierre]

The web site looks great - I must say though, the colour choice does give it a bit of a Xero look and feel. Perhaps a clue to one of the big movers for 2015?

Anyway, well done on a simple easy to follow format. Sincere thanks too to Paper Tiger for sterling efforts over the pasy few years - greatly appreciated.
Merci beaucoup
Pierre

[klid]

Thanks everyone. I guess I will make a post soon to launch it. I haven't got the dividends flowing yet but I think that shouldn't be too much trouble and I can manually do it if need be.
I bought an SSL certificate and forced it to be used (which means when you transfer data between the server and your computer it's forced encrypted - not much point because nothing much sensitive transferred (except password on login), but why not, peace of mind).

I've added EVO - cheers.
If it looks and feels like Xero it's a coincidence.. no, they must have copied me (http://bootswatch.com/cerulean/)

[Minerbarejet]

Thanks for this, klid. Looks good to me. Have just signed up without any problems.
And thanks to PT for your efforts, have a good break but try to keep the dust down as you leave.:)

[BlackPeter]

Hi klid,

just noticed - for some reason it looks like there is no drop down item for OHE on the list. They have certainly more than 10M Marketcap (more like 1 Billion) - and they have been listed at Dec 1st (though just). Any chance we can still add them to the contest?

Thanks.

[BFG]

Righto I'm in. Great site and very user friendly from the mobile side. Great effort! :)

[noodles]

Hi klid,

just noticed - for some reason it looks like there is no drop down item for OHE on the list. They have certainly more than 10M Marketcap (more like 1 Billion) - and they have been listed at Dec 1st (though just). Any chance we can still add them to the contest?

Thanks.
Also IQE please

[BFG]

Hey guys, any chance we can get more NZAX stocks up here? I noted that BFW was up but couldn't find PAY!

[klid]

Hey guys, any chance we can get more NZAX stocks up here? I noted that BFW was up but couldn't find PAY!
Sorry guys all the messages from the website form were going to my junk so I didn't get them straight away.

I've added PAY, IQE and OHE.