CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge Week 1 results

Thanks for sending in your results.  Here are the current standings among PF bloggers, and friends.

The leader is Dave, not a Personal Finance blogger, but impressive week 1 results.  Dave's portfolio value is $1,300,450, ranked 174 and in the tip 1% of all contestants.  Heck, take out Nancy Beaumont's extra entries, and Dave may be making a run at the top 100.

Here is everyone else...

2. Dana Corbin: Rank 7,910
3. MoneyFwd:  Value $1,055,184.14, Rank 13,542
4. Bobby: Value $1,021,545.90, Rank 55,227
5. Charles: Value $1,019,942.80, Rank 59,078
6. LivingAlmostLarge: Value $1,19,511, Rank Not Given (top 24%)
7. Fanatix: Value $1,019,458.72, Rank 60,320
8. LAMoneyGuy: Value $1,017,767.12, Rank 64,726
9. Joey:  Value $1,013,980.00, Rank 75,384
10. Robert Cote:  Value $1,011,379.40, Rank 83,938
11. Lulu:  Value $1,006,643.46, Rank 100,670
12. NCN: Value 1,000,000, Rank 182,528
13. My Financial Journey:  Value: $1,000,000, Rank 183,439

Quick observations:

• Seems like My Financial Journey is getting screwed on the ranking.  Not that it matters
• I agree with Robert Cote.  Bonus Bucks for answering some trivia questions undermines the integrity of the game.  Again, not that it matters.
• I'm surprised we don't have any negative numbers.  I suppose the market being positive for the week helped.  I wonder if anyone with a negative number abstained from posting results this week.  Too bad if that's the case.  We want all comers!

Comments

[Ira Krakow]

Why aren't NCN and My Financial Journey not tied? They each had $1,000,000.

[lamoneyguy]

Ira,
not my rankings. Who knows what metric the powers that be at CNBC decided we appropriate to rank tied users. One of many flaws in this contest. Still fun anyway.

[Dave]

Hey all,
Thanks. I'm thinking, however, of dropping out of the contest because of the Nancy Beaumont scam and the fact that there isn't a single brain working in the Executive Offices at OptionsXpress or GE/CNBC. I don't exaggerte. Get this--NB has 800 accounts with the potential of making 40,000 trades per day. I hope you'll all join me now in getting out the word to other Press outlets how OptionsXpress and GE/CNBC let this contest spiral out of control.

I'm in shock and I trust that the rest of you are not going to believe this either. I just read the blog of the so-called Official Blogger, Mark Koba, at CNBC's site, and he is stating, contrary to Dylan Radigan's comments last week, that muliple accounts are, get this--within the Rules.

The Rules state, in no uncertain terms, that each "participant" is entitled to "1,000,000" and "50" trades per day, not $800 million spread over 800 accounts and "40,000" trades per day.

This is an absolute joke. Any of you who understand statistics know that she is all but guaranteed to be the winner. There's no sense going on with the contest.

I intend to contact other press outlets to expose how silly this is and how everyone fell asleep at the wheel at OptionsXpress and GE/CNBC. They encourage everyone to read the Rules, but obviously they forgot to read their own Rules.

Dave

[Dave]

Your blog is cited as a reference in the Wikipedia entry regarding the controversy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC#Contest_.22Multiple_Accounts.22_Controversy

Contest "Multiple Accounts" Controversy

The Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge, which is being sponsored by OptionsXpress,[16] has become embroiled in controversy after just its first week when it was revealed that one participant, Nancy Beaumont from California, registered 800 separate portfolios in the contest, exponentially increasing her probability of winning the $1,000,000 prize, and leading to her occupying no fewer than nine places in the Top 25 Leader Board. [17][18][19][20]

The express terms of the Rules, however, provide in material part:

Description of the Contest: The contest is a stock trading game that provides Participants with a fictional trading account, One Million (1,000,000) fictional dollars ("CNBC Bucks") and the fictional ability to trade individual stocks on the NYSE, NASDAQ and/or AMEX exchanges.

[21]

The Rules further state:

Trading: Each participant begins the Contest with One Million (1,000,000) CNBC Bucks to create a fictional portfolio of the NYSE, NASDAQ and/or AMEX-traded stocks. ... Each participant can make a maximum of fifty (50) trades per Day, based on the time the trade is entered by the Participant.

[22]

As a result of Nancy Beaumont's registration of 800 accounts, therefore, she has $800,000,000 CNBC Bucks available to her in the contest, spread over 800 separate accounts, and the ability to make a total of 40,000 trades per day. Other participants who registered one account per the express terms of the Rules, by comparison, have $1,000,000 CNBC Bucks available to them and can only make 50 trades per day. As a result, the probability of Nancy Beaumont winning the contest is dramatically skewed in her favor.

The sponsor of the contest, OptionXpress has yet to make a statement regarding the controversy.

[Dave]

DYLAN RADIGAN LAST WEEK SAYING MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS IS CHEATING, WHICH IS CONSISTENT WITH THE PLAIN LANGUAGE OF THE RULES. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9VR77_gzOs

[john martin]

CNBC HAS A P.R. NIGHTMARE.. OPTIONSXPRESS....IF YOU ARE READING THIS PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND DEMAND THIS BE FIXED!!!! THIS IS ONE BIG SHAM~~~
IM WITH DAVE..I QUIT!!! SHAME ON YOU CNBC. YOUR REPORTING IS NOTHING BUT MANIPULATED FILTH, SO IT FOLLOWS YOUR GAME IS TOO.

[ALAN]

I JUST HIRED A HACKER TO CREATE 500K PORTFOLIOS AND TO TRADE THEM ALL DAY LONG USING ALGORITHMS. TOO BAD WE CAN'T SHORT, I'D SHORT GE. OH YEAH I CAN DO THAT IN MY REAL ACCOUNT. CHEEERS!

[scherf.com]

Answers to the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge Trivia questions can be found on the Cascada.cc website at:
http://cascada.cc/cnbcmillion.htm

[Larry]

My understanding Nancy Beaumont won week one. How was she able to even be eligible when she had so many portfolios? I saw her name in the top 20 about 6 times. I was understanding only once per name. Dylan came on CNBC discussing this particularly and how he was brought in to police it.

[Jeff]

cnbc is doing the same competition in australia between the 12th november 2007 and 15th feb 2008. check cnbc website for details.. first week is nearly over and we have someone with more than 400% gain..

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