The FT's new stock picking game, which attracted nearly 13,000 readers, offered a vivid lesson in market psychology over nine volatile weeks. Player Woody 5.0 dominated early but fell to 387th place after frantic, loss-chasing trades in the final days—behavior fund manager Simon Edelsten likened to the gambler's illusion that bankrupted Barings in 1995 after Nick Leeson lost £827mn.

The competition encapsulated a significant market turning point. It began with the optimistic SpaceX IPO and peak semiconductor euphoria, where players piled into Nvidia, Micron, and Advanced Micro Devices. Micron's Q3 earnings showed a 15-fold profit jump and 84.9% gross margin, pushing shares above $1,200. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra claimed AI ended the memory chip boom-bust cycle, but the market disagreed. By the contest's end on August 7, Micron was down 28%, Samsung 32%, and SanDisk 48% from June highs.

In the closing weeks, fears over AI infrastructure spending triggered a rotation. Edelsten noted the market began "separating the wheat from the chaff," rewarding fundamentals over momentum. The game proved that even in a virtual setting, disciplined investing outperforms heroic speculation.