Round 1 of Topstep Market Mania 2020 is in the books, and boy was the head-to-head futures action hot! The day-long, settles-to-settles slugfest between 16 of your favorite products revealed a few early themes: Crude Oil looks like a juggernaut, Equities bounced back, and the woeful Grains got sent to a "quiet farm" upstate. Read on for results, analysis, and the updated leaderboard.
Bear Region
ES (+2.80%) vs. NG (-2.21%)
Typical first round tune-up for the reigning king of equity indices. No global demand for energy translated to no love for the Natty Gas.
ZS (-0.46%) vs. 6B (+0.16%)
Soybeans got taken to Pound Town. But overall, it was a tough day for currency futures. Sterling is now the only FX contract remaining in the tournament.
Pit Region
GC (+2.91%) vs. ZN (-0.03%)
Conspiracy theorists and doomsday preppers rejoice! Gold is in it to win it. Bonds were strong all year, but underperformed when it counted.
6J (-0.64%) vs. NQ (+2.53%)
The Yen was no match for the 100 top nerd stocks.
Bull Region
6E (-0.77%) vs. YM (+2.57%)
The Euro is a fan-favorite among the currencies, but this 21-year-old coinage couldn't keep pace with the old-school DOW.
SI (+4.79%) vs. ZC (-0.37%)
Corn rounded out a pitiful showing for the Grains. Silver continues to have a chip on its shoulder as a "second tier" precious metal.
Screen Region
CL (+24.67%) 🔥🔥🔥 vs. 6A (-0.41%)
BEATDOWN ALERT! The Aussie Dollar never stood a chance against one of the biggest Crude Oil rallies on record. Oil certainly looks like the product to beat.
ZW (-1.54%) vs. ZB (+0.22%)
It was turn-back-the-clock night here—the 30-year Bond won this whole tournament back in 2018.
Updated Bracket
Perfect Bracket Club
There were 1154 brackets filled out for Market Mania 2020. If each match were a coin flip, we'd expect there to be only 4.5 perfect brackets after 8 games (on average). Due to the immense skill of our participants (and perhaps the correlation between the equity indices), we currently have 59 perfect brackets after Round 1!
Leaderboard
Get ready for a whole bunch of names... they all have perfects brackets (80 points).
| Name |
| Daniel D. |
| Carlos V. |
| Tony H. |
| Oleksii S. |
| Laura M. |
| Vladimir B. |
| Aileen R. |
| Putu S. |
| Arthemio P. |
| Matthew S. |
| Juan E. |
| Daniel R.A. |
| Julio V.C. |
| Tony F |
| Dmitry Z. |
| Carlos C. |
| Andy M. |
| Scott B. |
| Terryus G. |
| Raul G. |
| Arturo M. |
| Michael W.C. |
| Dianive I. |
| Fedor N. |
| Ponso S |
| Vyacheslav |
| Eli B.F. |
| Valeria M. |
| Bart B. |
| Maroine H. |
| Bill M. |
| Razvan I. |
| Nabot S. |
| David S. |
| Joe H. |
| Matthew D. |
| Ben J. |
| Ken R. |
| Joshua M. |
| Michelle B. |
| Zvi B. |
| Josep C. |
| Igor S. |
| Victor M. |
| Ammar A.S. |
| Javier V. |
| Christian M. |
| Diego M. |
| Eirik N. |
| Penny L. |
| Eric C.J. |
| Clarence H. |
| Jake L. |
| Deniz P. |
| Gary W. |
| Tarif G. |
| James C. |
| Cory K. |
| Marija T. |
Great job everybody! And remember, Round 2 tips off on April 6.
