I would like to take a few moments to talk about our new King-of-the-Hill ranking system. I already explained why we decided to change the main ranking mechanish in an earlier post, but here is a follow-up article that explains how the new ranking system works.

Your member ranking works the same way, which is chosen based on the ranking of your best public, paper-trading portfolio. However, the way in which portfolios are ranked has changed significantly.

The primary change is that portfolios are now ranked on a monthly basis, instead of the all-time model that was used before. We also changed the metric from Portfolio Value to Return on Assets (ROA). The old system has a lot of inefficiencies and it tends to stagnate the top positions to the "Usual Suspects", which makes it hard for new comers to show off their craft and get recognized. The rating system works in three tiers, which we think will level the playing field for most people regardless of experience levels and trading styles.

Last night we rolled out some new updates to the site, which might have made some of you wonder what happened to the King-of-the-Hill rankings. In the last few months, we have been getting feedback from members relating to the top ranking spots being somewhat stagnant and being held by people with huge portfolios.

In an effort to keep the competition fun and fair and the top spots dynamic, we decided to change the main King-of-the-Hill rankings to be based on monthly Return On Assets (ROA). We felt that this is more in line with our monthly Hall-of-Fame inductee selection and Tipping Monkey t-shirt award.

What this means is that our rankings will be reset on the first of every month, and for the rest of the month, ranking will be determined using the ROA based on the portfolio balance at the beginning of the month.

We believe this will make the ranking boards more dynamic as well as give newcomers a chance at the top spot without having to spend long periods to build up a monster portfolio.