I built a free game where you try to beat a couch at timing the market. Over 80k plays later, the couch usually wins.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49878453
Solo project I've been building this month, wanted to share here. The rules:
You get $10,000 and two secret years of real S&P 500 history, drawn from 1928 to 2019 (daily data, dividends included; your cash earns T-bill rates while you hide). One button: BUY or SELL. Your opponent is a couch. It buys at the start and never moves.
Every finished game is audited by 1,000 monkeys. It's a permutation test 1,000 replays with your same time in the market and same number of trades, on random days. Beat 90% of the monkeys and your win is stamped TIMED THE MARKET. Anything less is stamped LUCKY, in red ink, on your settlement document.
About 84,000 games have been played so far. The couch has won 63% of them. Roughly 1 game in 9 ends in a win that survives the monkey audit.
There's also a daily hand, same secret window for everyone, streaks, and a public ledger of humanity vs the couch.
If you have time, I'd love feedback, and I will answer any methodology questions, thanks!
https://beatthecouch.com/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
63 replies
I fuckin did it!
first and best use of this meme. i should think of some easter eggs related to this... congrats and hope you liked it (was a nice couch)
it was an excellent couch. before I wrecked it!
not the same couch, cousins actually...
It’s a little scary to learn that the reason the stock market graphs are always so jagged minute to minute through the day is because of people like these.
there's opportunity in trading. but to assume you'll get the benefit is very similar to assuming you'll beat the casino. it's possible, but unlikely, especially in the long term.
ironic that you say you'll lose in the long term, given that investing long term in an index fund is one of the safest ways to invest.
yeah, that's the whole point of the game. "trading" is the one that will not work in the long term. staying in the index fund is the good option.
Well you can game volatile stocks and you can buy and sell whenever you feel like it. Stuff like Tesla you know they're gonna swing down or swing up because shit's just so manipulated
The issue is everyone else thinks they can game it too, so price predictions are built into the cost, meaning you'll probably lose. There will be others who can trade faster and have more information who will beat you 99.99% of the time.
The loss in this case is "relative to an index fund"
The couch can remain irrational longer than I can remain solvent.
yepp
Small request, can you add the couch’s win pct next to the number of games it has won? I’m lazy
Thanks!
done, refresh a few times to see it
Nice! Thanks so much!
no problem, good idea, never got around to it
I won. Does that mean I should start betting on stocks? Ok.
well, go easy i guess...
I beat 9/10 monkeys! Damn I'm good, I should do this for real!
nice, congrats! and maybe you should (not)
Spamming the trade buttons seems to be a good strategy
Until OP implements short term cost basis
i just lost 3 out of 4 like that but certainly a strategy
Wtf it's harder than I imagined
yess, kind of the message hope you liked it!
S&P historically grew at like 7% per year on averange. You're at constant disadvantage against couch
U r sure it's not "be at the couch"
ayyy, nice
These are always good counter arguments to technical analysis. But I’d love to see something where you get industry news surrounding the stocks and have to see if you can also trade based on the news and noise or if the couch wins there.
In these older years maybe that would change something but in the modern era the market is totally irrational and doesn't react to news with any kind of sense.
I played maybe 15 games. I won one in 99th percentile and lost one in like 40th.
You main visual is the market line, but I would make the main visual the competing lines of you vs couch, whether that’s bars or also graphed on the market. Otherwise, you’re sort of burying the mental image you want people to take away.
There’s also times where the market went completely south, so I did nothing, and got the “enlightened” position.
It’s a neat micro-game, but it comes off as preachy. Maybe that’s your intent, but being preachy can really turn people off. That maybe not your intent.
the two lines are certainly harder/confusing to follow, i preferred the absolute numbers at the top. the preachy thing is certainly a choice, i do want to make a point with this. the whole thing is based on that tone of voice. i hear you, it'll turn some people off and i think i'm ok with it. appreciate the honest feedback.
Art should be like that, anyways. It’s a good micro game.
Fucking brilliant ! 👏👏
glad you liked it mate! you won or what?
out of three runs, lost once, won once then tied
Scared to take this further lmao the couch is gonna beat the daytrading out of me
do it!
Interesting game. You could add crypto currencies for fun factor. Beating the couch in bitcoin trading could be an interesting challange
yeah, i'm thinking about it. maybe i'll launch it on the app and add it to the web version. but not sure yet, not even sure if it's worth the effort for an app
I won!
hell yeah!
Not my feedback: RSI indicator requested for the chart.
Is your point here that holding assets over a long period of time always pays off more than selling high and buying low?
There is really no strategy to this, I just waited it out and the highest point was at the end, as was to be expected, never mind compounded interest over recurring investments or portfolio diversification.
Also I don't understand why the other player is a couch?
at the core it, it's a fun little game and not much more a lot of people do "chart reading" to predict the market and this kind of pokes fun at that
the idea is trying to time the market (whether buying or selling) is very hard and the s&p500 usually wins over the mid-to-long run
and the other playing a couch is just to show how little of an effort it takes to make more money than trading - an inanimate object in an index fund can outperform you.
I think you should spend a few more sentences selling the couch to players: "It doesn't buy. It doesn't sell. It just holds on to the stocks it already has."
Or something like that.
Frankly I don't know how anyone would misunderstand what the meaning of playing against a couch is here. Although personally I'd use a potato
hmm. beatthepotato...
will look into it, thanks for the feedback
The example I always found in investing literature is that the best class of investor is "dead people", since they don't time the market. Hard to say which one makes the point better.
beatthecorpse just didn't have the same vibe to it
Love it, tyu.
As far as I can tell it only used stock that "won". In that scenario, beating the couch is hard luck. But stock that ends up on 0, you could win more easily.
In real life I live off of that, so a couch won't always win 😋
I got 2 years just post 1929 and the only reason I won was I sold early and only lost 30% of the 10k, the couch lost 6k.
Ah okay, i only tried 3 or 4 times and it always was a winner (for that period).
it uses S&P500 which isn't necessarily winning stocks. although it wins over the long term, lots of losing years are included here.
i only tried 3 or 4 times and it always was a winner (for that period), so my comment shall be disregarded if there are also loosing stocks in the same ratio :)
it's 63% pro-couch right now. so you've been lucky so far : )
I would like a slider mode. It's very hard to do any sensible strategy with an all or nothing approach. If market goes up by 30% I want to progressively sell and vice versa
it's over two years so while not long term, it's not short either. lots of ups and downs. but i'm thinking of adding a career mode with 2x10 years, start with 10k, see where you end up kind of thing.
That one would be almost impossible to beat unless you recognise the the boom/bust cycle. It sounds interesting
yeah, sometimes i think i know the cycle and still get it wrong. too similar and not too similar at the same time. glad you liked it mate
Maybe add a volume chart to measure market activity, a candle stick chart to see the intra day OHLC and a moving average line chart. Just to see if people fare better compared to just an end of day line chart.