(This offer expired at the end of 2006.)
Is it just me or are iPods quickly taking over the world? A new trading site, Hedgestreet.com, is offering a free 1 GB iPod Shuffle for opening an account, funding with at least $100, and making one trade. No trading fees for the first 30 days. You can start trading immediately when you open the account. However, this is because you cannot take out your money for 30 days after deposit.
Hedgestreet is not a stock brokerage. Instead, you are essentially betting on the prices fluctuations of things like crude oil by buying or selling contracts with other users of the site. I am in no way an expert about these things, I simply watched their training demos (actually very helpful) and looked for the cheapest contract I could get into. I definitely recommend signing up for their mock trader service to play with some fake money first.
In the end, I sold a crude oil future with a maximum gain of about $97 and and maximum loss of $3 (it calculates this for you). As you’d expect, it was very unlikely that I’d win that $97. However, I just wanted the iPod, so I made the trade and ended up losing $2.50. Not bad for a Shuffle. Funnily enough, I already have one from another expired pseudo-brokerage offer.
I should add that if you are reading this on a weekend, there will probably be no binaries or future to trade until Monday. Sorry! They should really add some fake contracts to the mock trader.
If you are especially industrious, due to the lack of trading fees, you can try to buy and sell both sides of the contract to make your end cost even lower. In fact, their tagline – “It’s like being paid for being smart.” is interesting. Given that you are simply trading with other users, could this market be inefficient enough for dependable profit? Kind of like poker? Personally, the likelihood of me knowing more about the price of gas than the next guy is next to nothing, so I’ll just wait patiently for my toy.
Referral Program
There is also a referral program, where I get a free iPod for referring you, and you get an iPod (same as above), but with 60 days of free trading instead of just 30 days. Not too enticing, but it does help me get an free iPod at no cost to you. If you’re interested in this, please contact me and I’ll get a referral e-mail out to you ASAP. You have to use the same e-mail that you give me to open the account.
Fine print is here. Offer expires 12/29/06. They don’t mention if they will send out a 1099 for the retail value of the iPod.
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here’s something interesting in the fine print of the ipod promo:
“A participant that satisfies all of the terms and conditions of the Incentive Program contained herein will be a participant that is eligible to receive an iPod? shuffle? (“Eligible Participant”) no later than by the end of the Promotion Period.”
further down on the same page
“This Incentive Program will not award gifts of cash value. Rewards for those Eligible Participants participating in the Incentive Program will be an iPod (valued at approximately $79) which will be sent to all Eligible Participants no later than one month after the end of the Promotion Period;”
how soon did you get your’s, jonathan ?
Hello,
So do they just automatically send it to you when you sign up? Because I’m not seeing anything about the promotion on the site while I’m signing up.
I saw this offer a while ago on fatwallet. I thought about doing it then but I wasn’t sure how the trading worked. Since I see you can calculate your maximum loss I’m going to go ahead and give it a try. I’ve sent you a message requesting a referral.
The promotion is all over the site, including the front page. There is no code or anything that I recall, so I’m pretty sure everyone who signs up is included. I’m still waiting on my Shuffle, but will report when it arrives.
I was a little bit skeptical of the site, but after looking around various commodities sites and financial news outlets, everything points to this being legit. As usual, it’s important to be around when the initial venture capital money is being thrown about!
I predict this site being somewhat popular though. It’s almost like sports gambling. Is the total of the game going to be under or over 50? Is the price of gold going to be under or over 600?
One of my former profs is a mind behind hedgestreet, and he completely sold me on the idea. However, you should think of this like an options market and as a good way only to hedge against future risk. I don’t think you can treat it like a poker game. These things are just as unpredictable as stocks. If you’re minimizing risk by trading diversified portfolios, then why wouldn’t you do the same here? Thinking that you can beat other people here is just like thinking that you can beat other people in the options markets, and that thinking will get you in trouble.
I know zip about hedging so I can’t really add to that discussion. Their slogans of “It?s like being paid for being smart.” or “profit from correct insights” doesn’t really seem to be promoting hedging though. The trading demos seem to rely on people guessing prices too, instead of teaching people how to minimize exposure.
But I agree that my poker comparison is off. My idea was actually to arbitrage out both sides like people try to do in sports gambling. Since you can see the bid and ask, perhaps you could make it so no matter which way the prices moves, you still win a little. But if this thing is really popular, then that opportunity probably fades away. Anyways, just idle musings.
Does HedgeStreet do a hard credit inquiry when you open up an account?
if one receives an ipod, how should one file this gain with the IRS? gains from the site as well? thank you.
No hard inquiry. Strictly speaking, all income should be reported on your income tax return. Whether THEY will report it to the IRS remains to be seen . I would imagine they would be treated as passive income and taxed at your marginal rate, but I’m not sure.
So they will actually send you multiple Ipods if you refer people? Kind of sounds too good to be true. That’s a very high referral fee for them to be paying out.
No, only one iPod for the 1st referral, and then two $50 Amazon gift certificates for me (3 total). But all referees get the 60 days free trading.
Correct me if Im wrong but it sounds like 1 iPod shuffle for signing yourself up and 1 more for the 1st referral then $50 gift cards for the next 2 referrals? Maybe I am reading the deal wrong?
Yep, that’s the total deal, adding in the one for signing up myself.
In response to the thing about betting on both sides, check out different options trading strategies and you might be able to attack it more logically. In fact, what you’re describing is a straddle or strangle. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/straddle.asp
Jonathan, Are you planning to withdraw the money or close the account once you get the iPod.
There are lots of strategies to manage risk with options. The collar trade is an interesting one if you want to buy a volatile stock (like say google). You tade off an upside limit for downside protection.
http://www.poweropt.com/collarshelp.asp
I’m still trying to figure it out but came out the opposite of Jonathan. I shorted a crude contract today and actually gained the 91 dollar upside.
Short Sell 1 $100 Crude Oil > $62.00 (18 Dec 06) @ 91.0 $-9.00
Still trying to figure out exactly how it all works, to be honest I don’t really get what I did but here is a series of articles on the subject.
http://www.turtletrader.com/hedgestreet2.html
Jonathan,
Do you know if there is a minimum balance requirement to be maintained at all times. Say your A/c balance falls below the $100, would they charge something?
Also, is there a inactivity fee if you decide not to do anything after the 1st free trade in promo period?
Fee Schedule
have you received any news at all regarding the ipod? any confirmation?
Very cool deal.
And to think, I was going to buy an iPod from Best Buy today.
I’m signing up tonight. Thanks for the tip.
I just received an e-mail today. Saying that it’s my last chance to get the iPod shuffle. I thought this was interesting, it says these are the requirements.
? Open an account online in minutes
? Fund with only $100
? Execute a Trade and Profit from correct insights
? Receive a Free iPod? shuffle?
? Receive No Trading Fees for 30 days!
Notice how it says “Execute a Trade and PROFIT from CORRECT insights?”
If that is a requirement, I think it’s possible that you don’t get an iPod unless you actually profit from your one trade. I’d like to think not, but maybe they’ve thought through it….
Well, that was interesting. I just got off of the phone with one of the people who works there. We had a fairly long (~5m) conversation. He was actually cool to talk to, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d only signed up to possibly get the free ipod.
I never went through with the first trade, though. I would have if it’d been a nano, but the shuffle is almost trash to me (was considering ebaying it). I need a screen!
Has anyone received their Shuffle yet for making the trade and also refering a friend?
Also when the trade closed out that I made on a futures, it charged $1 to close it out. I e-mailed them asking why there was a charge and they havent responded. Its been two weeks.
Has anyone also withdrawn money after 30 days and had it work yet?
I’d also like to know if Jonathan or anyone else has gotten a shuffle. I opened my account on 12/19, executed a trade on 12/22, and haven’t heard a peep.
It says that the Shuffles should be received no later than 1 month after the end of the promotional period. 12/31/06.
Got mine!
Anyone knows if the Shuffle offer is still valid? Do I have to use any specific url for it?
Offer is expired. I am going to close my account, or at least take all my money out.