Hi @GazD thanks for raising these points. We have considered them before but just don't think it makes any real difference.

In regards to having a regular 'income' that adds to your cash balance, there is, as you say, the issue of what income is 'normal'. But to my mind it's all arbitrary anyway.

Your SM portfolio is there to build a track record, but it's also a signal to your fellow members as to what stocks you think are worth holding, and in what proportion. Whether you have a $100k portfolio or $10k portfolio, what I want to see is how you weight your positions. Eg a 20% holding suggests a company on which you have a very high conviction, whereas a 2% holding doesn't carry nearly as much weight.

This is true too of regular cash additions. After the cash is added, it needs to be allocated (or left in cash if you prefer) but either way the percentage holdings are the important signals.

Remember, there is no minimum parcel of shares (you can own a single 2c share if you wish) and there are no tax or transaction costs.

So in your case, using Kogan as an example, you could have just sold some of your shares to free up cash for your new position. Either way, whether you reweight your portfolio or get fresh cash, you'll have a certain percentage allocation to a range of stocks once it's all said and done.

So it really doesn't make any difference. And it avoids the issue of longer standing members being granted more cash to play with.

As for resetting your portfolio and trying again until you get a good start, while thats possible you also reset the timer.

I think I probably speak for most when I say that members put much less emphasis on 3 month returns, then they do a (say) 12 month return.

The way rankings and awards work mean you just get less credit for having a 3m return, but nothing else. So continually resetting your scorecard just doesn't give you much advantage. Even if you do persist once you get a good start, there's no guarantee you'll get a good return in the months ahead and our returns are all calculated on a trailing basis over the various timeframes.

Hope this all makes sense. Of course, others may disagree so always keen for feedback.

@Strawman way down the track you could also incorporate ways of redeeming award credits to purchase parcels of SM "paper money" when you don't want to sell down high conviction holdings but find another opportunity....

Some good points @markeewan

I would clarify though that Sequence risk is only a factor for the 'since inception' return figure -- it is not a consideration for the trailing return calculations. And we aggregate them all when ranking and rewarding performance.

Hi @tbra97 I think your suggestion has merit, however it gets back to the lack of a level playing field, where potentially some members would have a larger pool of capital to invest than others. Personally I don't think the amount of starting capital makes any difference actually, because it's the p.a. returns through the investing cycle that matters. And when you are dealing in percentage returns, somebody with a $1,000 portfolio can outperform somebody with a $1m portfolio. The dollar amount is really immaterial. So I don't have any issues with the $1,000K/month top-ups or your idea of being able to use Strawman award credits to purchase more investment dollars here, however I'm guessing it could become either messy or complicated for the site devs/programmers to provide the coding and maintenance for all of that for what is probably a minimal gain in terms of the user experience. It would be nice, but perhaps not right up the top of the wishlist.

I tend to invest here, and IRL also, on the basis of weightings in terms of conviction and opportunity, so the most undervalued companies for which I have the highest conviction will tend to be my larger positions, and my lowest conviction positions will usually have low weightings in my portfolios, however that changes somewhat when I feel the market is primed for a decent correction or crash. Rather than go to cash, I will often up my exposure to safer and larger, well-established companies, and reduce my exposure to smaller and riskier companies. So you could look at my portfolio as a $1,000,000 ($1m) portfolio by simply multiplying everything I hold by 10, or a $10m portfolio by multiplying each position by 100. Then those $1K positions start to make more sense, because they'd be $10K in a $1m portfolio and $100K positions in a $10m portfolio.

Thanks to @Strawman @Bear77 @markeewan @tbra97 @SaberX for responses.

I found all of this conversation educational and stimulating. Happy to play the game as it's written but sometimes I like to share thoughts.

Just to be clear I am absolutely not trying to explain my relatively shitty performance on SM away. My IRL portfolio is also similarly in the red currently! I'm totally unfussed though as I have a 25 year work horizon and I figure(/hope) I'm learning plenty! Delighted to be learning from such a great group of people.

Thoughts always welcome @GazD

Never be backward in coming forward!