Indeed - I'm also at a loss how to handle these scenarios effectively. Worse I used to put in my SM orders after 4PM thinking they'd go through because I put in a price that's just above whatever the close price was - and then they'd just hang around not getting filled and I wouldn't notice

So now I usually try to either

• just put in a buy price on SM that's WAY higher than the current price (i.e. basically just make it a market rather than limit order) in the hopes it doesn't move too much by the close
• put in the order close to 4PM to get near to whatever the "current" price is at the close - but sometimes I simply forget or get distracted and don't end up putting in the SM trade at all and so some things just never make it into my SM portfolio (e.g. I just discovered MIN isn't in my SM portfolio even though I bought it in RL multiple times all the way back to 2021)

Yeah, it annoys me too @GazD

We'd do live pricing, or even 20 minute delayed if it wasn't so egregiously expensive (this isn't me just being tight -- we spend close to $20k per yeah just for the end of day data and licensing, and the live pricing is multiples of that -- at least if you need all the data points we require such as dividends, adjustments, ETFs etc).

@Remorhaz has some good suggestions (either set a high limit or try and place your orders near the end of the day), but other options only tend to allow people to game the system (believe me, we've thought deeply about this and learned a lot through past mistakes)

@NewyRookie I agree. It's the real money portfolio that I focus on.

I also generally do what @Strawman suggests - place the order just before the close (when I have a good idea of the price) and set a high-ish limit when buying and a low-ish limit for selling.

I might be a bit unusual, because several of my larger holdings aren't even on SM (but are listed in weight order on my profile). As a result, in recent weeks when I've sold all or parts of holdings in RL ($RMD, $CSL, $WTC, $BRG) and added more to SM positions (e.g., $IPG, $SPZ, $BOT, $NEU, $TLX, $AD8), I haven't had any cash on SM and also didn't feel like selling my SM positions - as I hadn't been selling these in RL. So, my SM trades haven't been 100% accurately signalling my true behaviour, even though I always record this in posts. Against that personal challenge, the details of transacting in the day are not significant for me.

I come back to your point: as the SM portfolio isn't real money, I think what we have is great and wouldn't want to add any "votes" to ideas that make the platform higher cost to operate. Because ulimately, that will raise the membership fees.

Thanks @Strawman @Remorhaz @NewyRookie @mikebrisy

Agree it's just a pretend portfolio. I think I'm just jaded that I've made so many bad calls with my SM portfolio that I don't want to miss the (possible) good ones!

But yeah @Strawman I'm glad you're not paying more than that for what would be a very minor change in the scheme of things. The value prop of SM is not based on tiny outcome differences in our portfolios. I guess it would hurt the rapid trader style more significantly but that's definitely not my style and I would guess pretty rare in the SM community.

This is good practice for trading overseas markets, especially the US!

@mikebrisy trade just before close.....oh now i see. like everyone else, i have had trades not complete that have been completed IRL, one i particularly remember was a gold switch that the sale was made but not the buy. so what, it's not real (then i would be very angry! LOL) but it does mean that my SM portfolio has diverged from my IRL over time as i have become less vigilant with Sm trades.. does that matter? only if people are closely following what I do......dont think that is the case lol....and i do get soem amusement to see what does better SM v IRL and why or how much they diverge which is interesting

i have a large proportion of my net worth in the market so my IRL portfolio is very important and always top of mind.--and much of it is disclosed on SM and on my blog, so thats where i stand

@Solvetheriddle yes, like you I run a little thought experiement to compare RL and SM.

For me, RL has/had some high quality cos: $ALU, $WTC, $XRO, $RMD, $FNP, $CSL, $BRG, $MQG, and $NCK never held by me on SM. Whereas my SM portfolio has "unproven" companies I consider are higher risk.

So far, RL returns are winning hands down, but that's because 1) I joined SM in early 2021, and my SM small caps got hit in the 2021-22 re-rate and 2) I have made some particularly DUMB "investments" ($EML, $PBH, $AMS etc.) exclusively in my SM stocks.

Still, over the long term (5+years), its going to be an interesting experiment, as my SM has been closing the large gap more recently.

I wonder whether this might be a systematic effect which benefits peoples IRL portfolios over their SM portfolios. My takeaway from this would be that it's likely the SM index is actually understating the returns of the SM community. I will up my buy price for Smart Parking for example to increase my position accepting that my SM return won't be quite as good as my IRL. I still love the business so if I'm showcasing my favourite stocks makes sense to just buy it anyway...