Make paper trades with the objective of maximizing your funds without taking undue risk. You may trade any exchange traded futures contract. Dont trade stocks or options on stocks. Assume you have $100,000. If you have intra-day prices you may trade off them; if not, use closing prices from the WSJ, NYT, IBD, www.cmegroup.com, etc. Trade as much or as little as you like. Your all-in commission is $10/Round-turn. Ignore interest on non-margin balances. Both initial/spec. margin rates, for the purpose of this exercise, are the same: 5% of the contracts nominal value. If you cant meet margin, liquidate some of your position. If you go debit, the trading aspect of this game is finished and you should begin writing about how you blew up. My expectation: a well designed spreadsheet printout (or similar ledger) showing a time line of entry/exit prices, size, commissions paid , margin/equity ratio, and a running balance of total equity -including open-trade equity. Additionally, give me a couple of pages of text describing your experience. What you may have thought you did right, what you did wrong, and what you might have learned. Ideally, you should provide a well thought out description of your trading methods i.e. target margin/equity ratio, whether you use stops, how you take profits, etc. You should provide some narrative about important trades (youll know which ones they are) in which you explain what you expected to happen, how you positioned yourself, and the outcome. The trading games duration is 2 weeks, September 13-24. At the conclusion of the game flatten (offset) your remaining positions, mark-to-market and begin the write up. Due October 4, 2010