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CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 1
[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]
Don't let the post header fool you. We've now entered Week 2 in the Portfolio Challenge. The Week 1 winner won't be determined until well after today's closing bell (though our pal Thirumurugan Chandrahasan is currently leading), but there's nothing more you can do to affect your Week 1 standings and today's trades will be the first to be reflected in your Week 2 performance.
So cast off the shackles of your terrible Week 1 trades and get ready to compete for the "Cloister at Sea Island Weekend Getaway". (The fabulous prize package boasts an approximate retail value of $14,000, so you may want to begin scrimping for the tax bill.) Since the weekly prizes are based on each week's performance in isolation, you're now back on equal footing with everyone in the game. Your errors will of course be on your permanent record as far as the million dollars is concerned, though.
Heck, in this next round, you might even be able to trade currencies (but I wouldn't bet on it).
If you're looking for earnings reporters in order to prod the volatility monster, you've only got one play today, so far as I can tell - Campbell's Soup (CPB). It's Friday - not many company's reporting after today's close or before Monday's opening bell. And that's probably just as well, too, since the Week 1 slate did us few favors.
For what it's worth, Campbell's is widely-followed and the analysts tend to peg it pretty close. The stock's already had a pretty good run already this year and the market sentiment is moderately bullish. In short, this stock might disappoint those playing the earthquake strategy. It might be a good day to scoop up some of the biggest losers for a one-day rebound ride and see if they can't give you a jump start into Week 2. (Just remember you may also wing up riding them down through a day of follow-through selling. This is a completely afundamental shut-your-eyes-and-swing-for-the-fences tactic for a contest that only rewards superlative returns.)
Among the eligibles, here are your 5 biggest losers of the day:
| Name | Symbol | Today |
| FirstService Corporation | FSRV | -9.8% |
| 99 Cents Only Stores | NDN | -9.0% |
| Fairpoint Communications | FRP | -7.1% |
| LG Display Co | LPL | -6.5% |
| Urban Outfitters | URBN | -6.0% |
(Consider all of the above to be for entertainment purposes and not meant to be used as real-world investment recommendations. The goals and strategies of the Portfolio Challenge are not to be confused with those of sensible investing.)
See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.
Update: The Week 1 winner has been crowned. It's James Fox from Valley Center, California with a portfolio value of $1.318 million. Assuming James has answered all the trivia questions, his total would include $60,000 in bonus bucks. But he gained the other $258,000 on a portfolio of only $900,000, since $100,000 was stranded in a broken currency portfolio. Not too shabby, James!
If you happen by here, please drop us a line or tip your hat in the comments. And let us know whether those World Series tickets you just won would get your vote in our "Is the tax bill worth it?" poll.
Friday, May 16th
Throughout the contest, each day's answers will be at the top of the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive as soon as the questions are published, so bookmark accordingly.
Daily Trivia:
Squawk Box: "Boone Pickens is building a huge wind farm with General Electric turbines. How much is the initial order with GE worth?"
Answer: About $2 billion
Squawk On the Street: "The geothermal industry is molten! But there are only 2 pure plays trading on U.S. exchanges. Name one."
Answer: Ormat Technologies
The Call: "The CNBC Stock Blog featured "Israeli gems" -- picks by Merrill Lynch's Haim Israel. What was his telecom pick?"
Answer: Cellcom
Power Lunch: "Donald Trump told CNBC he sold his Palm Beach house for $100 million. What literary reference did he make?"
Answer: Tale of two cities
Street Signs: "Erin Burnett is in South Asia, seeking global market movers. How big is India's economy?"
Answer: $1.2 trillion
Closing Bell: "In "Bill Miller's Broken Legg," what company did Jim Cramer call "an American comeback story"? "
Answer: ArvinMeritor
Have you taken the prize poll?
Handcrafted by Flip on May 16, 2008 |
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Comments
I am in top 2.2%. One of the issues I have is, I have this cash lying around from the trivia wins and some sell offs, but I can't use it buy anything. I see under Manage my stocks: Stocks, Intraday: % of Portfolio as of 5/15/08 at 4pm EST: 96% Target Allocation: 96% Cash, Intraday: % of Portfolio as of 5/15/08 at 4pm EST: 4% Target Allocation: 0% As soon as I add a symbol and try to make give it 4%, it starts reporting error. Do I have to redo the whole portfolio everytime I have cash lying around ?Posted by: Abhishek | May 16, 2008 8:33:21 AM
To answer the question (comment) posted by Abhishek. No, you do not have to redo your whole portfolio. I moved money from cash into stocks yesterday just fine. The only error I got was when I moved that lame slider bar too far. Well that and the overall poor response from the CNBC website. Keep trying. It will all work eventually.Posted by: Clark Jenkins | May 16, 2008 12:38:31 PM
The answer to the Power Lunch question today about Donald Trump is "A tale of two cities."Posted by: Hugh | May 16, 2008 12:41:30 PM
Right you are, Hugh. I was away from my computer when the 12:00 question came out - thanks for picking up the slack.Posted by: Flip | May 16, 2008 1:01:12 PM
Stock edits keep "failing." Then when leaving portfolio I'm trying to manage, "portfolio not found." When I signed on, "you have five portfolios." Next message "you have no portfolios." Bet I lose my top .3% standing!Posted by: Mel | May 16, 2008 3:51:57 PM
The 'challenge' seems to be in trying to overcome all the technical difficulties...Posted by: Denny | May 16, 2008 3:56:39 PM
PLEASE CLARIFY ONE THING! If I placed an order before close today (Friday), is that order executed at the price when the market finally closes (Friday's price). Or, does that order get executed at the following market closing price (Monday price)? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, I'm never again gonn'a wait until 1 hour before close to place my orders - probably will, instead, do it before lunch. I was only able to place one trade in the last hour! Thanks for listening.Posted by: David | May 16, 2008 4:22:17 PM
David, you've got it right (in theory). The whole system went screwy today during the final hour of trading, so no guarantees that the system will handle your trade properly. But normally, if you submit a trade before 4 pm on Friday, it will execute at the Friday closing price and be reflected in your portfolio by Monday.Posted by: Flip | May 16, 2008 4:30:38 PM
My best guess is that the CNBC servers must have started thrashing (putting 99% of the hardware's resources into memory swaps to disk; thus not having the ability to receive orders). CNBC's only solution for 2008 is to invest more money into hardware (or else just let us all learn to place trades earlier). I expect that the CNBC IT staff is very competent, but it typically takes many months to develop solutions in complex database environments. Its too bad they couldn't have done more volume testing during development (not always an easy task). ---------------------------------------------------- I think one of my orders was accepted. I received *numerous* messages in the confirmation window that the order had failed. Then, during the last 1/2 hour, or so, JAVA kept giving this message: Microsoft JScript runtime error '800a01b6' Object doesn't support this property or method /challenge/resources/lib/asp/datafunctions.asp, line 209. I think that meant that the server was dead to the outside world. ---------------------------------------------------- Since we can't trade in real time, that drives contestants to place trades near the market close. (The same thing happens with mutual funds in the "real" world.) Flip, thanks for clarifying the process.Posted by: David | May 16, 2008 5:57:07 PM
Why is it I am only able to allocate 25% of a portfolio to a single stock, whereas last year I could devote an entire million to a single stock? I like to use 'dead cat bounces' on my portfolios to gain profits, but my im only making 1/4th the profit because of only being able to allocate 25% to a certin stock. Am I using the slider incorrectly or do I have my settings wrong?Posted by: Micah Howerton | May 23, 2008 11:42:22 AM
