Dow Dawg Turns Fantastical Virtual Profit

Last spring, Alex Cheung (B.A., 2005) became a billionaire. Well, a virtual billionaire, at least. The winner of the annual Dow Dawgs Mock Stock Competition turned an imaginary $1 million into $1.5 billion - sadly, also imaginary - in just three months, by aggressively day-trading on real-life stock markets.

For those of you scoring at home, that's a gain of 1,500 percent.

How did he do it? Cheung credits a strategy developed during his high school days in Hong Kong and refined during investment courses at the Business School. He buys bargain stocks with high growth potential, and chews up risk with an audacity that only virtual investing can purchase.

"For a mock stock competition, the goal is to make the most return in the shortest amount of time, so I am encouraged to take a lot of risk," he explains. "I may put half of my portfolio into one stock for half an hour and then sell it off. I probably wouldn't take such a risk in real life."

In the real life of this recent UW graduate in marketing and psychology, real money doesn't flow so freely just yet. But he has mined valuable lessons about diversifying risks and valuations, and hopes to make astute long-term investments as his net worth rises. Anything else would be pure speculation.

"The virtual stock environment is unique from the real stock environment," Cheung says. "This gain would be much more difficult to replicate in real life, or else I'd be on vacation in Las Vegas for the next year."

As for the $200 in prize money, Cheung has already "invested" it in the settlement of an expired driver's license citation. No risk, zero return, but still a smart financial move.

Return to August 2005 BA Alumni News