News & Press Releases

Trading a real account is better than trading a simulated account when you are trying to identify real traders and real investors.

Wouldn't it be better and smarter to select a portfolio manager based on performance rather than a fancy pitch?

The World TopInvestor is a dream come true for traders and investors that want to have fame and recognition. As responsible investors they already know that there is a risk of loss in trading, but they also know they can reduce risk by applying control, techniques and strategies over their trades, and they can win.

The world scenario for 2013-2014 plays like an unusual period for the markets. All looks good in the world financial markets, but they surely can produce gyrations in stocks, commodities, currencies and interest rates. The World keeps making deals and participants in the World TopInvestor must act and react quickly to make money, real money.

Over the next 6 weeks investors are going to be divided in between those participating and those who will follow those participating the World TopInvestor.
Time to choose.

The World TopInvestor competition is open to qualified, experienced investors familiar with the risk involved in trading in these markets. Competition rankings will be posted online daily by partner brokerage firms, as well as on the competition website, www.worldtopinvestor.com. The grand prize, is a mandate to be a portfolio manager for DIF Broker for at least a year.

 

A programmer and algorithm designer from Poland is the winner of the 2011-2012 edition of the World Top Investor. He is currently coordinating a team of traders, programmers and developers in his company SmartTrading in order to create fully automated trading systems and trade his own money.

Pawel Olchawa came to this WTI with the intention to win the competition and with a strategy for that, using multiple accounts, and also using above normal leverage.

As trading philosophy, he uses a combination of technical analysis, fundamental data and proprietary metrics both statistical and methodological. During the last 12 months of competition his application allowed him to design strategies and divide any strategy into reusable pieces to integrate with fully automated trading strategies. He believes that with this approach the result is a series of sound strategies with promising results on historical data.

In the competition however the only strategy was looking for strong breakouts using extreme leverage and predefined stop and profit levels. Pawel Olchawa recognizes that the leverage applied is the result of having the knowledge of performance of the previous winners, and also recognizes that the use of multiple accounts was to hedge a series of breakout trades and limit downside risk.

Pawel Olchawa is the successor  of Mariusz Ganczar as World Top Investor in Poland and World Top Investor in the world.

 

Mr Paweł Olchawa, the leader of WTI edition comes from Poland, and has only been an active investor for a couple of years in his own words.

Professionally he is a programmer and algorithms designer.
He started programming when he was 13 years old and at 18 started studying algorithms and competing in programming contests.

As a programmer he was:
 - 1st place in IPSC 2005 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Problem_Solving_Contest
 - finalist of Google Code Jam 2005

Code Jam 2005
 - 6th place in ACM Central Europe Programming Contest 2004/2005

Later he managed to turn his programming experience into a successful business projectby being the co-founder of the social network nk.pl which competes with the Facebook in Poland.
 

Mr Olchawa strategy for the contest was trading only EUR/USD looking for opportunities of strong breakouts from side trends. With technical analysis he extracted periods with high probability of strong breakout. Obviously for the competition he played with high leverage using predefined Stop and Profit levels, trying to minimize time when he had open positions. All trades were performed manually.

 

 

We spoke with Mariusz Potaczala president of TMS Brokers and a veteran of the markets. Specifically we asked about the changes in market conditions over the years since all participants of the WTI complain about the new reality.
According to Mariusz it ties into how much and how quickly information is disseminated in our days. Back in the great depression it took a while for the market to learn about news, sometimes it could take weeks. Right now news are absorbed into the marketplace immediately. The result is pullbacks are rarely the magnitude of what they used to be and prices move a lot faster.
A good example is the fighting reported by Bloomberg in the east of Saudi Arabia, with police and armed Shia protesters. As a result oil is up to the highest in a month.
Another example is Moody’s downgrade of six European  countries. The impact was barely noticeable because S&P and Fitch had already gone through this exercise last month.
One month and a half before the end of the 2011-2012 edition of WTI Mariusz is happy with the performance of fellow Polish Pawel Olchawa with 3 accounts on the top 10 world ranking. He is confident he will be the winner of this edition and the successor of compatriot Mariusz Ganczar winner of the 2009-2010 edition.
Mariusz is very happy with the performance of his TMS clients. ‘’Let’s face it’’ he said, ‘’ for Polish people a great deal of investing is on par with instincts’’.
  

 

We have now officially a bull market since the SP is gaining 20% since October. We are entering the last 2 months of the World Top Investor competition and without realizing it the market is in a bull market after all. Volume on the NYSE Euronext is 24% lower compare to < year ago, and the situation in Europe is muddling with IMF warning of a possible 4% contraction, but talking to investors none of them wants to be outright short in the market. Polish and Spanish investors have benefited from this not so sudden bullmarket being the only two countries populating the top 10 because being reasonably long.Most of the remaining participants seemed to miss the early year strength in the markets.The leading contestants made all of their gains at the beginning of the competition but they are not trusting this market believing it is being propped up by central banks.The question now is to know if the fund flows reverse. If they start buying on this strength chasing returns maybe some of the participants willing to be long will have a chance to raise to the top. WTI participant Pavan from India says ''there will be swings in both directions, but do not feel participants will be compelled into some artificially manipulated game they can't understand.'' 

 

 

Maria Helena Coutinho winner of the 2005-2006 WTI competition decided to close the account in the present edition. We asked her a few questions.  

How did you learn to trade?

 

First let me say that I do not believe that no one can teach you how to trade. Someone can teach you a method but much of trading is you conquering your own psychological fears and doubts.

 

So how long you think someone will take to master the art of trading?

 

A lifetime, because it is a continuous process to master how to make money since you are always reminded by the markets that you can lose money. The distance from mastering the markets is always much greater than what you perceive at times. Bottom line you have to put a lot of yourself to succeed a lot of patience and a lot of common sense.

 Is this the reason you have abandon the present edition of WTI?

Yes I was losing over 75% on my account and it was very difficult to recover with the actual volatility. I have always questions to myself, because questions establish the focus of my mind. Is this the right market for me to trade? With all these losses should I take more risks?

 

You are very much into trading psychology aren't you?

 Well if I mention some examples of questions is because questions set up a behavior and my mind was not there anymore, so it was better to stop. 

 

 

We asked him what are his guidelines for risk management?

Hanqui Guo- Risk control is an essential part of trading successfully. The results of a trade might not be good but if effective risk management was applied the trade is always well done.

 What are your rules?

Hanqui Guo- I have a trading plan and I adhere to it. This methodology has been extensively tested and I know what I am willing to lose. I use stop orders to limit my risk exposure and cut losses in fast moving markets. I try to trade with the trend and control my emotions. All traders experience high levels of stress particularly when suffering losses like now. Anxiety, frustration, depression are all part of the trading game. Part of my risk management is the ability to control those emotions in order not to get them take control of my trading.

 What is happening this year for your succession of losses?

Hanqui Guo- The market is behaving irrationally but I stick with my trading plan even if sometimes I am having personal doubts. Obviously my trading plan is not suitable for the actual market behavior but markets keep changing their behavior so I trade defensively now because I already lost 75% of my portfolio.

 Could you have changed anything if you could?

Hanqui Guo- No because I have done everything right according to my strategy: markets are like that and we have to be prepared for them. I always trade thinking about what I can lose as opposed to what I can gain. I fully understand the risks of the trade. I eliminate unnecessary risk when possible, I am selective about the risks to take and I think I act quick to reduce risk exposure. This is what needs to be done when you trade and this is what needs to continue to be done even if one is losing money.

Thank you

 

It's a short week in the US due to Thanksgiving holiday and it´s a painful week in Europe due to the Sovereign crisis. World Top Investors participants live and die by their own decisions and decisions are very difficult in such terrifying economic conditions.A German bond auction failed this week with the German government only attracting bids for only over half the offer. Germany is not seen any more as a refuge of stability in Europe. Ratings agencies are standing by to downgrade European debt. Pawel Olchawa said that ''he expects a world economic recession caused by the international crisis''. He also added that he is convinced markets are now manipulated with investors being influenced, by information.'' ''Who can you trust'' he asked, and continue, ''I can no longer trust the press, the government, the accounting rules, the rule of law, I even doubt my own judgment''. Mr Olchawa only makes a quick one round trade a month for quite a few months to keep his first and second place at the world rankings.This week saw John Rodrigues leader of the Portuguese League go to the 5th place in the World rankings  and the Japanese Toru Ochi enter the top 10.The European debt debacle promises to keep making life difficult for investors. 

 

This week started with an absolute bloodbath in Europe, with markets plunging with major losses and the euro currency getting crushed, in reaction to the news that the EU bailout plan might be headed for a referendum vote in Greece.Markets are now subject to rumors and news by the hour or the minute and it is impossible to know what will happen to the financial markets in the near term. Italian bonds and French bonds surged to the highest ever relative to core German yields. On the global economic front things look very bad also, China Purchasing Managers Index missed the most bearish forecasts and Australian central bank cut interest rates for the first time since 2009, confirming that the global economy is slowing. World Top Investors participants are having a very difficult time to utilize strategies to take advantage of the situation. In a matter of hours the market can destroy the value of the portfolio. Not many are trading, more interested in trying to protect gains. This is not an environment for passive investing, because the markets are having depressive tendencies. There is euphoria and the markets go up then there is pessimism and they go down, but all this is happening almost every hour.

 

 

With the movement known as the ‘’indignados’’ and now the ‘’Occupy Wall Street’’ the western world is now under a wave of global unrest. It’s true that those protesters seem clueless in their anger but nevertheless it is another fact participants of World Top Investor will have to face.

They know too well the other facts: Ongoing Eurozone debt crisis, accelerating talks to recapitalize European banks, constant downgrades by the rating agencies, and the use or not of leverage in the EFSF.  In the markets the VIX is dropping, which means traders are no longer willing to pay a large premium to insure their positions. It also means we can expect less dramatic swings from the market, even if it is difficult to rely on statistics alone to make trading decisions.Last week was a good week for the markets with the Dow adding 500 points over 5 sessions.  Dividend yields of the SP500 is now higher than the 10 year US Treasury bond, which apparently never happened before.Gold is rebounding and Hong Kong the world’s third largest gold center launched gold contracts trading in Yuan. Meanwhile oil has been in a wide sideways range since the August decline. 

The first four accounts in the world rankings of WTI are not trading and just benefitting from the gains accumulated since April. John Rodrigues and Andrzej Czechowski are the only participants at the top 10 steady increasing gains, with John Rodrigues using ETfs and Andrzej forex.

 

The SP 500 plunged 19.6% in the last 5 months, but since August 9 traders at World Top Investor have operated under the assumption that the bottom is in. The stock market has been in consolidation for weeks although with extreme volatility. Traders are now watching 1100 as a very important support. T-bonds closed below the widely followed 20 day moving average for the first time since July a technical sign that the bullish trend is losing momentum. Stop loss orders in bonds have been responsible for some important losses among participants, who have anticipated the seasonal high pattern often establish by bonds in October.Gold plunged to a two and a half month low falling briefly to 1530 just below the 144 day moving average and bouncing above 1600. The dollar is having an inverse correlation with gold.Mr Pawel Olchawa keeps his first two accounts in cash opening and closing a position a month to just comply with the rules but not taking any risks. His gains of 444% and 441,5% are not being challenged, yet by Manuel Huertas from Spain who remains third with gains of 242%.‘’What we are seeing in the markets right now is simple volatility related to the soap opera that has become the European crisis’’. Said John Rodrigues leader of the Portuguese League and 8^th on the world ranking. John Rodrigues is a World Top Investor veteran having won the Portuguese League in 2008-2009.

 

 

The week of September 16th was a quadruple witching, with stock futures, stock options, stock futures and stock index options all expiring. It was also the week when the ECB and the FED announced they would flood the European banks with dollars. The fact is that after starting the week with mixed emotions, the DAX Index which hit a two year low on Monday closed the week up more than 7%. The euro was below 1.36 on Monday ends the week at 1.38 and gold after falling below 1.800 usd ended the week above.Mr. Pawel Olchawa almost stopped trading on his leading account but is slowly growing his other accounts and as now 5 accounts among the top 10.This continues to be a very difficult year for investors reflected on the WTI participants.Next week we can expect more volatility. Moody's downgraded two of the big French banks and even if the announcement had no effect on the markets it could still have, now that quadruple witching is gone and European Finance ministers in Poland have not reached any major decisions.Troubles in Europe seem to have just began and central bankers are committed to supplying liquidity in the market. Investors watch out.