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.

With a new year brings new hope, I hope that everyone will become a better investor in 2008, and that we will be making money despite what some would consider gloomy times ahead. But first things first, I would like to announce the first King-of-the-Hill winner for 2008.

The honor goes to Brett Devine, who had been showing us how short-biased speculative trading can attain great returns. We do not necessarily endorse "betting the farm" activities, but we do want to acknowledge the fact short-biased trading has its merits.

Congratulations Brett! You have not only won an exclusive Tipping Monkey t-shirt (not sold in stores of course), you are also the winner of the first of 2 special book prizes - "Understanding Hedge Funds ...

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So as we wrap up a pretty good trading year of 2007, I am also looking forward to the upcoming year of 2008. Though I am less optimistic about 2008, the good thing about investing is that we have the tools to make money whether the market goes up or down. Nonetheless, I would be happier making money off a raging bull market than a bear market; psychologically, at least.

With new years come new resolutions. I hope your resolutions include being a better investor and making more money. And to add a little incentive to that, we are going to give out a couple of special prizes for the Jan and Feb 2008 King-of-the-Hill winners.

In addition to our exclusive Tipping Monkey t-shirt, we will also be adding a book for the winner of each month. The following are the books that we will be giving away:

January 2008: Understanding Hedge Funds ...

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First of all, I wanted to apologize to our members and readers that I have not been writing a lot in the last few months. Those of you who have been with us for a while have seen how we transformed our old site into the current look, and it had been a taxing few months. Now that we have the site about how we would like it to be, I hope to be able to write more as we turn the page to a brand new year of 2008!

But first things first, as the year 2007 comes to an end, I would like to announce the King-of-the-Hill winners for the year of 2007. That`s right, this also means that we have 12 Hall-of-Fame inductees for each month of 2007! I could not believe how much we have achieved in the last 12 months, and I wanted to say thank you on behalf of everyone here at Tipping Monkey to all our members and readers, because without your support, we would not have gotten this far. We have a lot in store for you in 2008, and we cannot wait to hear your feedback.