How Our Leaderboards Score Performance
Ranking investors sounds simple until you try it. Here is what our leaderboards measure, why percentage returns beat dollar gains, and what the rankings can and cannot tell you.
Our leaderboards rank member paper portfolios so the community can see who is navigating the market well, celebrate streaks, and (mostly) stay motivated to keep learning. Designing a fair ranking turns out to be a small lesson in performance measurement, which is exactly why we expose the methodology instead of hiding it.
Percentage returns, not dollar gains
The core metric is percentage return on the paper portfolio. Dollar gains reward whoever started with the most or added the most along the way; percentages put a $1,000 account and a $100,000 account on the same footing. A member who turns $5,000 into $5,600 (12 percent) outranks one who turned $50,000 into $53,000 (6 percent), and that is the correct order: skill is measured by rate, not by size.
Time-weighting: the deposit problem
Raw percentage change breaks the moment people add money mid-period. If you deposit fresh paper cash right before a rally, a naive calculation credits the deposit as if it were investment gain. The standard fix, which professional funds are required to use and we mirror, is time-weighted return: the period is broken at each cash flow, each segment's return is computed on the money actually at work, and the segments are chained together. Your ranking reflects what your decisions earned, not what your deposits added.
The three boards
- Portfolio returns: time-weighted performance of member paper portfolios, the flagship ranking.
- Course progress: lessons and certificates completed in /learn, because the site's actual product is understanding, and we want the grind visible.
- Community: contribution measures like published posts and activity, recognizing the members who make the place worth visiting.
What a leaderboard cannot tell you
- Luck versus skill, on short windows. Over a month, a single concentrated bet on a hot stock can top the board. Over a year of time-weighted measurement, luck starts washing out. Respect the long boards more than the weekly ones.
- Risk taken. Two members with identical 15 percent returns are not equal if one held a diversified portfolio and the other rode a single meme stock. Return per unit of risk is the professional lens; as a learner, glance at a leader's holdings, not just their number.
- Repeatability. The market rewards different styles in different seasons. This quarter's champion strategy is frequently next quarter's anchor. The board is a snapshot of fit between style and season, not a certificate of permanent genius.
Using the boards the healthy way
Chase the process leaders, not the return leaders. Find members whose write-ups are clear, whose theses are falsifiable, and whose losses come with honest post-mortems. Ranking above the index fund line, consistently, over long windows, with reasoning you would defend in daylight: that is the actual win condition. The trophy is the habit.
Key takeaways
- Rankings use percentage returns so account size does not decide the winner.
- Time-weighted calculation removes the distortion from mid-period deposits.
- Short-window leaders are often lucky; long-window consistency is the signal.
- Returns ignore risk taken, so read a leader's holdings before copying their style.
Educational content, not financial advice.