As proud title sponsor of the Alpari World Match Racing Tour (AWMRT), we decided to bring the competition from the water to the shore and challenge the skippers to a new contest – conquering the Forex markets. Back in July the Alpari Skipper Trading Challenge pitched the nine tour card holding skippers competing in the AWMRT against each other in a new activity: Navigating the Forex markets.
The nine skippers, along with a little help from their teammates, competed on MetaTrader 4 Demo accounts loaded with GBP500,000 in virtual money. The contest ran from the beginning of July until 26 September when the finale took place during Match Race France in Marseille. Winners were determined by account profit, or loss, and each member of the winning team received a TAG Heuer Aquaracer watch.
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The three months of the Challenge saw fierce battles between the highly competitive skippers and their teams. Johnie dominated the first month, making almost GBP30,000 on his first trade. His strategy was rather peculiar – he held an open position for about a month!
Phil became a contender after the St Moritz Match Race, making big trades on the GBPUSD currency pair. Unfortunately, this also became his downfall as he made big losses on the same pair. In the end, he had to settle with an unfortunate GBP99,605 loss.
Meanwhile, risk management became a tough lesson for British skipper Ian Williams to learn. He did not place stop losses on some massive EURUSD trades and his balance was wiped out overnight. Ian finished the Challenge with a huge GBP499,938 loss.
Little did the other contenders know that Simone Ferrarese of Italy was waiting until the very last moment to swoop into top spot with some very inspiring deadline day trades. Having a fantastic strategy, he started with smaller trades as he got to know the MetaTrader 4 platform and learnt about the markets, before gradually increasing his trade size as he became more confident. Simone finished the tournament with a whopping GBP176,925 profit, taking the win and making an impressive 35% return.
After calculating the profits – and losses – Simone was crowned champion in a rather interesting way. Dressing as both trader and sailor, Simone demonstrated the parallels between the activities – and Forex trading is indeed very similar to sailing. In both you have to spot the opportunity to get ahead in the game, calculate risk and then react with lightning speed.
Exclusive Q&A video interview with challenge winner Simone.
