I work with startups. My job is to find innovative hidden-gems in the tech industry.
Each month I see dozens of startups and test their products and services.
In the following series of 101 Startups, I'll give you an overview of the best startups and apps I encounter, and I hope you will discover, and use these new services and innovative products.
Note: For the first episodes, I kindly asked @knozaki2015 to help me publish in order to get a bit of visibility. If you enjoyed the reading and want to see more in the future, FOLLOW ME.
@sebastien
Today's pick is called VESTLY.
VESLTY is a free app which allows you to enter monthly stock trading contests for real CASH prizes!
You can win up to $200,000 in cash and prizes over a year. The top performers will share prizes ranking from $3,000 to $30, and every month there is a draw to win a brand new car.
Sounds cool, right ?
HOW DOES IT WORK ?
It's totally free, so you have to make virtual investments in order to maximize the earnings of your virtual wallet. Virtual stocks are purchased with virtual money: you enter the stock picker symbol on the app and you "buy" the stock (Limit is 10 stocks in the portfolio).
It is as simple as that.
The better your stocks perform, the more points you'll gain.
Points translate in positions the leader board, and top performers get REAL cash. (you can even win cars)
VESTLY makes money from the investments strategies of all users: They use AI and machine learning to create an optimal strategy on the REAL market. They also may sell this data, from the everyday consumer, which might be useful to various financial institutions like hedge fund managers and e-trading platforms.
So the more you play, the more data they have, and the more prizes you can get.
MY EXPERIENCE:
Login is extremely simple: only a Facebook account is required for registration (you must be at least 18 years old to play).
Then, simply select stocks you think will perform on the market using the stock picker symbol.
One drawback: There is no stock explorer giving you the actual positions and performances of stocks, so you will have to use another source to decide your trades.
My initial strategy was to bet on the Dow Jones, but volatility was too small (in the 1% zone) to really yield big results. Even by doing good, I was in the bottom of the leader board...
I changed my method and switched to the NASDAQ stocks (more volatile), with a strategy consisting in picking the "worst decliners", hoping they would have significant technical raises afterwards. It did actually worked a couple times, generating high scores and putting me in the top 200; but I got destroyed by some bad picking in Pharmas and some risky positions on banks right before the Bexit event... (Excuse my French but: Damn rosbifs!)
I have not won anything yet. But I had bags of fun, and the relief that I did not invest my own money!!
BOTTOM LINE:
It's free, it's fun and you can win something. So why not ?! (we are on steemit, we like free stuff)
It allows you to take virtual-risks on the markets (safe strategies will not put you on the leader board), and to get to know some companies and the impacts of the monetary politics on the stock market.
(...Janet, if you read me, say hi from Jackson Hole)
You can play only 10min per day and still have the thrill of the trader, seeing your stocks raising ... or not!
You can now be a "Jerome Kerviel", or a "Fabulous Fabe" without going to jail.
Find it on the Apple store HERE.
I hope that you enjoyed and that you will try this cool app. If you did enjoy the reading, please follow me for more "101 startups" stories in the future.
Attention: This post has been written by @sebastien
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