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Wall Street Journal front pages

The Crystal Ball Challenge

Can you outtrade AI?

You're a stock and bond trader who knows the future. We'll show you the front page of the Wall Street Journal one day before it's published, and you get to trade on it. For example: on Monday morning, you're shown Wednesday's front page, which reports on what happened Tuesday. You place your trade at Monday's close and liquidate at Tuesday's close, once the news has played out in the market. We've blacked out any explicit market price information so you can't just read the answer.

You'll trade the S&P 500 and 30-year Treasury Bond futures (remember: bond prices fall when yields rise).

Use the sliders to size your positions, up to 50x leverage, then hit “Trade.” Your starting wealth is $1,000,000.

In this version, you're not just playing solo. An AI will trade alongside you on each day, reading the same front page. At the end, you'll see how your performance stacks up against Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok.

Key details:

  1. Trading days drawn one per year from the past 15 years, randomly selected from employment reports, Fed announcements, and other days, all drawn from the top half of days by market volatility. The days are chosen at random and not intended to trick you. You choose up front whether to play 5 or 15 of them.
  2. 1x leverage = position size equals your capital.
  3. No transaction costs or financing charges.
  4. Use “Skip” to pass on any day. After 5 days you can “End now” to stop early.

Have fun!

Tell us where to send your scorecard — we use this to track participation and never share it.

Crystal Ball Trading Challenge

You'll trade historical Wall Street Journal front pages with the dates removed. Set your positions on the S&P 500 and 30-year Treasury — then see what actually happened.

How many questions?
🤖

vs. AI

Compete head-to-head against one or more AIs. Everyone trades simultaneously — sealed bid. The AIs see the same headlines, reasoning from first principles without knowing the outcome.

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Elm's Crystal Ball Trading Challenge is for entertainment and educational purposes only, and nothing in it should be considered investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to use AI for trading. Performance by any AI model in a simulated, hypothetical exercise is not indicative of its ability to generate returns in real markets. Elm Partners Management LLC is a SEC registered investment adviser.