Suitably Flip: May 2008

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Obama's Surprise Fact-Finding Mission

I wonder if John McCain goaded him into making this unexpected field trip.

Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Mt. Rushmore Friday night.
...
Obama stared at the 60-foot heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln chiseled into the side of the mountain as park ranger Wesley Jensen talked to him about Mt. Rushmore’s history.

“How did the actor in ‘North By Northwest’ get up there,” Obama asked about the classic 1959 Alfred Hitchcock movie staring Cary Grant.

“He didn’t, that was a movie set,” Jensen said.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 31, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Howard Dean: Magnanimous and Petty, With a Side of Bonkers

Dean So Howard Dean is playing emcee at the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting today, in an attempt to figure out whether to break their own rules in order to hand illegitimate delegates to a candidate who can't win even if she gets them.

Talk about political intrigue.

The ever-lofty Dr. Dean kicked off the proceedings with a little speech pooh-poohing the "cynics" who will watch this process and see only conflict. Those who can't see the beauty and harmony in the process of bickering over the party's self-made quandary make Dean's heart heavy, it turns out. Conflict and pettiness have no place in the process, we're assured.

Dean then went on to "tell a short story" which was wonderfully on point. The story was about himself "ranting" for "about 20 minutes" to Al Gore 4 years ago (not clear if it was before or after the Scream-led downfall) and making breath-holding, foot-stomping, Napoleonic threats to desert the party if he didn't start getting his due respect.

This man of such rare depth and maturity then took another tangent, moaning about the fact that Al Gore "had the election snatched from him by 5 intellectually bankrupt Supreme Court Judges who did the wrong thing."

He then went on to accuse the media and members of his own party of making "blatantly sexist" and "blatantly racist" remarks in their efforts to advance their candidates.

Sadly, it appears I'mve become a cynic. Because I'm watching this beautiful process and seeing only conflict (even before the arguments begin).

Handcrafted by Flip on May 31, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Entering the Silly Season Post-Season: Geraldine Ferraro For McCain's VP

Sure - the woman who helped Fritz lose every state but Minnesota. What could go wrong?

Charlie Gerow, a GOP strategist, says he has come around to admiring Ferraro's candidness in recent weeks since she stepped down from the Clinton campaign in March: "Look she is saying I am a Reagan Democrat, even though she ran against Reagan, and if you read between the lines she is also saying she's not voting for Barack Obama."

Gerow, a former Reagan staffer said jokingly, "with her attitude and outlook maybe she might be a good running mate for John McCain."

I know Gerow was just shuckin' and jivin' about Ferraro's unlikely affinity for "Reagan Democrats" but that's just not even funny.

On the other hand, she is (astonishingly) just a year older than McCain. And she has that all-important experience in the field of being a Vice Presidential candidate.

I think I still prefer Palin.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 3

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Are people cheating in the Portfolio Challenge?

That's what a growing number of you are scratching your chin and wondering aloud, based on the comments and e-mails coming in lately. And you sniveling tattletales may have a point. After all, cheating did turn out to be rampant last year.

Or rather, "cheating" turned out to be explicitly permitted last year, insofar as cheating was limited to the registration of multiple accounts by a single trader. The contest admins presumably didn't anticipate that failing to explicitly prohibit the practice would fundamentally change the game, but it was apparent by the end of Week 1, when trader Nancy Beaumont was not only atop the leaderboard, but occupied several of the other top slots. She ultimately won an at-large bid for the (now defunct) final round, after CNBC ruled that since the practice wasn't proscribed, it had to be allowed.

Of course, at that point, many more traders (your humble narrator among them) sat around creating hundreds of legal accounts to use from Week 2 onward. The only trick was using a different e-mail address (one where you could actually receive mail) for each account. And with administrative access to a single web domain, that's fairly trivial. With hundreds of accounts (and without this year's 25% allocation limit), the dominant game strategy became to allocate your - say - thousand accounts into 4 or 5 stocks (with each account going 100% into a single stock) on the first day of a new week, then take the couple hundred in the stock that did the best and reallocate them into another 4 or 5. Repeat for 5 days and you're down to a single portfolio that has a good chance of outscoring the field. You've essentially captured every permutation of one-day positions in stocks you identified as offering volatility on the holding day. It didn't matter whether stocks went up or down, as long as at least some went up and the moves were large.

In response to the multi-account perversion, this year not just a different e-mail address, but a different identity is required to register multiple accounts. From the rules:

Each individual Participant can register only once and must provide a single CNBC.com account (with associated email address and password) which he/she must use when participating in the Contest. ... Any attempt (successful or unsuccessful) by any Participant to register multiple times by any means, including but not limited to through the use of multiple email accounts, as determined by CNBC in its sole discretion, may result in disqualification of all accounts and Portfolios submitted by that Participant.

The concern that many of you have voiced is that traders may be registering multiple accounts on their own behalf, using the names and addresses of spouses or other family members. Among the evidence cited is the appearance of two men with the last name Fox, who live not far from each other in southern California, and who together occupy 3 of the top 5 spots on the leaderboard. James Fox, who won Week 1, maintains the top ranking, while Curtis Fox holds the #2 and #4 spots.

Some of you have mentioned other pairings that have appeared on the leaderboard and arrived at the dark inference of mock trading malfeasance.

A couple thoughts:

First, every player can maintain 5 portfolios, so Curtis' double billing isn't in itself problematic. Second, people with the last name Fox and people who live in southern California are both large population sets. So simple coincidence isn't a crazy theory.

But for sake of argument, let's assume that at least one of the pairings observed on the leaderboard involved more than mere coincidence. It seems to me that there's a wide spectrum of possible impropriety, ranging from pretty innocuous to pretty blatant cheating.

The rules don't specifically address the possibility of using another real person with a real email address as nothing more than a shell through which to manage additional portfolios on one's own behalf, but that would pretty clearly seem to violate the spirit, if not the letter of the rule. And it would presumably trip the "by any means, including but not limited to through the use of multiple email accounts, as determined by CNBC in its sole discretion" clause.

But there are some lighter gray areas - is it prohibited for a husband to encourage his wife to register an account and to share his trading ideas on a daily basis? Ditto for siblings, cousins, etc.? Presumably not.

Some muddier middle ground might involve one or both of the following two twists:

1) The management of the combined accounts is done in a coordinated manner (i.e. diversifying picks across all portfolios), thus giving the individual or the group an advantage over individual traders. A reasonable person could probably interpret this either as cheating or savvy (per the Eric Cartman theory, it just depends on whether you succeed at it). Here, for instance, we discuss game strategy and specific trading ideas, some of which some of you have acted on, and in some cases done well. I doubt if the contest admins would take umbrage at that. But what if we began coordinating our trading, such that none of us were duplicating another's exact allocation? We'd have a much better chance at one of us winning than if we didn't coordinate. Would that be cheating?

2) The coordinator is not only the one making trading decisions, but is also the beneficiary of the accounts not in his own name. This is somewhat moot in the husband-wife scenario, but in the case of brothers, cousins, etc., this tweak might be enough to shove you into non-compliance, because it's then pretty clear that the arrangement serves no purpose other than to thwart the new rule.

Of course, that last distinction would be difficult to probe, as the trading behavior of two family members simply coordinating strategy would be indistinguishable from that of one family member using another's name and address to set up a dummy account. I suppose the contest admins could look at the users' physical locations while trading, in search of co-located traders who are supposed to live at least several towns apart. But the level of badwill involved in such an investigation, especially given that it wouldn't be dispositive (family members from the same region getting together regularly would be a reasonable explanation), makes this seem like an unsavory remedy for CNBC. A simpler solution might be simply to have all prospective winners sign affidavits affirming compliance with a more explicit version of the non-duplicate clause.

In short, I'm certain there are at least some people cheating (out of the hundreds of thousands playing), probably in many clever ways. Whether the few instances of curious pairings on the leaderboard involve cheating (at any point on the smarminess spectrum) is a lot less clear. Still, given the turmoil yielded by the vagueries of last year's rules, there's every chance that this will once again come to a head at some point during the contest.

All thoughts and comments on the issue are eagerly invited.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

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Friday May 30th

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: "Question: On Wednesday, Cramer revealed his Wind Index. Which "Windex" stock was NOT one of his previous calls?"

Answer: Ameron

Squawk On the Street: "Question: In the slideshow 10 Most Expensive States to Buy Gasoline, which state was No. 3?"

Answer: New York

The Call: "Question: On May 21, Lee Klaskow described his "holy trinity" of rail freight. Which company was closest to his model?"

Answer: Burlington Northern

Power Lunch: "Question: CNBC Stock Blog: How did BlackRock's Bob Doll view a possible InBev-Anheuser deal?"

Answer: It's the correct trend

Street Signs: ""Behind the Wheel" blogger Phil LeBeau is optimistic about the auto industry! Why?"

Answer: Alternative-fueled cars

Closing Bell: "Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers sees an "ominous sign" in his customers' behavior. What sign?"

Answer: Delaying bill payment

Handcrafted by Flip on May 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 3

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Busy morning this morning, so commentary up here will be light. Feel free to use to the comment thread to talk amongst yourselves. Are people encountering more technical issues than usual over the last day or so? The volume of irregularities being reported in via e-mail has definitely ticked up.

As for yesterday's one-day volatility picks, it looks like we've got two beats trading higher (TiVo and Ansoft), one miss trading flat (Sycamore) and one miss trading down (Golar). If you allocated a portfolio evenly into the four yesterday afternoon, you're up about 0.3% as of 10:15 am.

Eh.

I'm not sure why TiVo's not getting a bigger bump - they demolished expectations.

Update: Okay, that's a little more like it. TiVo's been steaming along throughout the session and now sits 6.5% above yesterday's close. That brings the average one-day return of yesterday's picks up to roughly 1.6%. It's not yesterday good, but still good enough to outpace the market, even on this very bull-friendly day.

(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:

To receive additional updates by e-mail, drop a line here with the word "Subscribe" in the subject header.

Thursday May 29th

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: "In "The Steady Rise of Oil" (April 18) what transportation metaphor did Sri Jegarajah use?"

Answer: Garage the station wagon

Squawk On the Street: "In "Housing Issues Scarier Than High Oil Prices" Wilbur Ross said how many U.S. public firms are run badly?"

Answer: 1%

The Call: "On Tuesday's Mad Money show, which Cold War phrase did Cramer reference?"

Answer: Warsaw Pact

Power Lunch: "In "(Oil) Drilling For a Better Portfolio" how did Gerald Jordan describe Weatherford Intl.?"

Answer: Sort of mini-Schlumberger

Street Signs: "How did Sports Biz blogger Darren Rovell feel upon learning tennis star Ashley Harkleroad posed for Playboy?"

Answer: Sorrowful

Closing Bell: "CNBC Stock Blog: On May 20, which bank did Jeffery Harte say had the best management team?"

Answer: JPMorgan

Handcrafted by Flip on May 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

GDPick'em - The Results Show

Looks like the consensus knew what it was talking about. Today's revision to the first quarter GDP moved the real growth estimate from 0.6% to 0.9%. According to yesterday's poll, that's higher than 62% of you expected, so go ahead and smile at this news.

With economic growth having managed to avoid a negative quarter and having now begun to accelerate, not only is a recession (by even the most liberal definition) a vanishing prospect, but even the term "slowdown" might need to be shelved.

Admittedly, it's tough news for recession-vested media outlets. Still, our reliably gloomy-eyed friends at the Associated Press prove they know how to cram the lemonade back into the lemon.

Though the data suggests the economy may avoid a technical recession -- defined by two straight quarters of decreasing GDP -- the upward revision was not as big as many investors had hoped.

Hear that? The vanishing prospects of a recession and the return to accelerating growth amount to no more than a *suggestion* that we *may* avoid a *technical* recession.

Let's be very clear, AP. By any reasonable measure, the economy isn't receding, it's expanding. In real terms. And that expansion isn't slowing, it's quickening. It's a heartbreaker, I know. But the Great Depression of 2008 just wasn't meant to be.

Previously: GDPick'em

Handcrafted by Flip on May 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Extracontinental Dark Horse Enters the GOP Veepstakes

Palin In the wake of John McCain's ostensibly social Memorial Day barbecue, where attendees included a handful of reputed Vice Presidential short listers (Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Crist et al), an interesting name from further afield may have just been added to the mix.

A tipster sent us word that John McCain's VP advance man Arthur Culvahouse has been spotted in Juneau, Alaska. There's only one reason he would be there - to meet with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin about the Vice President position.
...
Thomas Cheplick at The American Spectator makes the case that she's probably the only VP cadidate who can balance the ticket against Obama. She's also a potential magnet for disaffected Hillary Clinton voters, many of whom are just looking for a reason not to vote for Obama.

Fred Barnes identified Palin as the most popular Governor and with approval ratings in the 80s and 90s, she might just be the most popular statewide official in the country. What's more, at just 44 years old, she's one of the many possible picks younger than Barack Obama who features a more substantive CV than the presumptive Democratic nominee.

As a lily gilder, she's fighting the federal government on the doltish decision to list the growing polar bear population as a "threatened" one.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

GDPick'em

Tomorrow morning, the Commerce Department will release a revised estimate of 1st quarter GDP growth. Last month, the advance estimate gauged the real growth rate at 0.6% (an ever-so-slight acceleration from the prior quarter's rate of 0.58%). I noted at the time that it gets increasingly difficult to flog the recession horse when your real growth rate is not only positive (and exceeding economists' expectations), but accelerating.

Still, an acceleration of 0.02% per year per quarter is admittedly a dainty one. Interestingly, on the day following the advance estimate, the WSJ Economics blog cited research suggesting the 1Q08 number would likely need to be substantially revised upward, perhaps as high as 0.9% or 1.0%.

If tomorrow's revision does take us that high, the recession fetishists (so resolute in their gloomy prophecies that they can no longer be swayed by mere evidence of economic expansion) will again need to find somewhere new to haul the goal posts.

Of course, even absent an upward revision (indeed, even in the face of a downward revision of up to 0.6 percentage points), we'll still have no indication of a single quarter of contraction. Alas, that fails to impress high-minded thinkers in media and politics who are unmoved by "technical definitions" of "elite economists" and anyone else who fails to recognize the world is surely at an end.

With that as backdrop, let's get a quick read of our own collective malaise. Where do you think the first quarter estimate will be, after tomorrow's revision? The initial estimate showed a growth rate of 0.6% and economists on average predict it will be revised upward to 0.9%.

What will be the revised ("preliminary") estimate of 1Q08 GDP growth?
	Less than 0%
	Positive, but revised down
	0.6% (unchanged)
	0.7%
	0.8%
	0.9%
	1.0%
	1.1%
	1.2%
	Above 1.2%

Handcrafted by Flip on May 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 3

[Scroll down for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

And gap up they shall.

All three very special picks from yesterday (Daktronics, WuXi PharmaTech, and Chico's) went on to beat their respective earnings expectations. And since we were aiming for volatility as well as upside surprises, those one-day positions might pay off handsomely.

Shortly after the open, they were all enjoying bounces, but none as splendidly as Daktronics, which not only walloped expectations, but issued strong guidance for 2009.

Daktronics (DAKT): +17.6%
WuXi PharmaTech (WX): +1.7%
Chico's FAS (CHS): +6.1%

Of course, they can always drift back down during the session and we can't sell them until the close, but all in all, it looks like a decent day.

Here are a few fresh ones, using the same screening and evaluation criteria as before. In addition to being eligible for the contest, each of the companies below will report earnings today after the close or tomorrow before the open (meaning they have the potential for significant one-day moves if bought before 4 pm today). Of these 16 names, the final 4 (in bold green) might be worth some extra attention (based on the amount of analyst coverage, the difference between the high and consensus analyst estimates, recent revisions to those estimates, today's price move, the stock's historical volatility, and the company's earnings surprise track record).

Men's Wearhouse (MW)
Apollo Investment Corp (AINV)
Dyncorp Intl (DCP)
Omnivision Tech (OVTI)
Dress Barn (DBRN)
DSW INC (DSW)
Big Lots (BIG)
H.J. Heinz (HNZ)
Joy Global (JOYG)
Costco (COST)
Mechel OAO (MTL)
Sears Holdings (SHLD)
Golar LNG (GLNG)
Ansoft Corp (ANST)
Sycamore Networks (SCMR)
TiVo (TIVO)

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

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Wednesday May 28th

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: "In the last paragraph of "Stocks Dont Like Obama" Larry Kudlow concludes that:"

Answer: McCain can still win

Squawk On the Street: "In "Emerging Money: Up For '08" how many of Tim Seymour's trades were part of the Emerging Money Top 20 list?"

Answer: Three

The Call: "CNBC Guest Blog: In "Calling Out The Confidence Game" what ancient pseudo-science did Jerry Bowyer refer to?"

Answer: Phrenology

Power Lunch: "In a May 27 CNBC Stock Blog, how did Dan Genter describe corporate dividends?"

Answer: Weapon of choice

Street Signs: "On May 27, what small- and mid-cap businesses did "market pro" David Twibell praise?"

Answer: Regional & community banks

Closing Bell: " In May 27's Lightning Round, what energy play did Cramer recommend?"

Answer: Frontline

Handcrafted by Flip on May 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Fidel Castro Makes His Presidential Endorsement

Can you guess for whom?

An 'endorsement' no candidate wants: Fidel favors Barack

Just what the presidential candidates have been waiting for: Cuba's Fidel Castro is weighing in on the campaign.

The 81-year-old leader of the Cuban revolution may have given up his position as the country's president, but he writes regularly for the Communist Party newspaper, Granma -- and in a column in Monday's edition ... he calls Barack Obama "the most advanced candidate" in the race.

I'm not so big on the increasingly de rigueur overt rejection of endorsements from unsavories (whether it's Obama's Hamas or McCain's Hagee), mainly for the undesirable precedent it establishes, namely that any endorsement that goes unrejected then becomes a tacit reciprocal endorsement of that individual's or organization's ideology.

But while I don't suggest Obama should be required to address the endorsement one way or another, that's certainly not to say that unwelcome endorsements can't be illustrative. If we know enough about the aims and sensibilities of the kooks in question, then when enough of them line up behind the same candidates, we can draw the logical inferences (whether or not the candidate promptly rejects, renounces, and repudiates the louse in question).

(HT: See-dubya)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Pipe Dreams From My Uncle

Amanda Carpenter brings you up to speed on Barack Obama's latest skirmish with the truth.

Obama told a story about his WWII veteran uncle who allegedly liberated Auschwitz that doesn't appear to be true. He said this while campaigning in New Mexico on Memorial Day.

According to Obama family lore the uncle spent months in the attic alone upon returning to the US. “Now obviously, something had really affected him deeply, but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,” Obama said. “That’s why this idea of making sure that every single veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need – that’s why it’s so important.”

The problem? Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army, not the American brigade.

Obama's actual assertion:

“I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps and the story in our family is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months, right. Now obviously something had really affected him deeply but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,” he said.

The RNC seized on Obama's latest fact troubles.

“Barack Obama’s dubious claim is inconsistent with world history and demands an explanation. It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there’s no way Obama’s statement yesterday can be true. Obama’s frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief,” said RNC Press Secretary Alex Conant.

And perhaps the more glaring inconsistency (as noted in the Fox story linked above): Obama's mother is an only child.

It's one thing to forget what side your uncle fought on. It's quite another to mix up whether or not he exists. Still, until all the facts are in, let's await clarification from the Obama camp before we start looking for an apology-if-people-misconstrued-his-remarks-and-got-offended.

Update: And there's your clarification. By "Auschwitz" he meant "Ohrduf". And by "uncle" he meant "great uncle".

Handcrafted by Flip on May 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 3

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Welcome to Week 3, the week with the most desired weekly prize - the Sony Style HD Home Entertainment Package. This week's also notable in that it's the first full week of currency trading (assuming the system holds up - we're already getting at least one report of malfunction this morning).

After suffering early technical troubles, currency trading went live again last Wednesday. In the 6 days since, high-scorer Tara Arriola has managed to turn her $100,000 allotment into $140,000. That's certainly impressive, but compared to the board-topping equity gains (more than $400,000 over 2 weeks), it appears that the currency portfolios will be less meaningful than one might've guessed (and than I did guess), despite the 10:1 leverage they offer and the fact that you can trade continuously throughout the day.

Even with those rules in place, there's apparently just not enough buying power and/or volatility even for superlative currency traders to make gains that compare to the superlative stock gainers. The contest winners (and presumably each weekly winner) will continue to be home run hitters on the equity side. That said, the rankings of the heaviest hitters can certainly be shuffled by currency returns. To wit, James Fox has been usurped by Kevin Wheat atop the contest leaderboard.

With $9,000 in currency gains, Wheat hasn't scored nearly as well as Arriola, who's netted $40,000 so far. But Fox hasn't done any currency trading. So his stock lead over Wheat (totaling just $4,000) was easily wiped out by Wheat's currency gains.

Bottom line: currency trading matters. But even if you do quite well, the small initial allocation means that (notwithstanding the leverage and continuous trading), its ability to contribute to your overall performance is still significantly less than that of the stock portfolio. If reallocating most of your currency trading energies to equity trading enables you make even slightly better stock picks, it's almost certainly the way to go.

To that end, here's your crop of eligible stocks that will report earnings tonight or tomorrow morning. Of these 13, you may want to take a closer look at the last 3, if you're looking for stocks that have the capacity to gap up tomorrow (based on the amount of analyst coverage, the difference between the high and consensus analyst estimates, recent revisions to those estimates, today's price move, the stock's historical volatility, and the company's earnings surprise track record).

Company	Symbol
RBC Bearings	ROLL
Cogent, Inc.	COGT
Shanda Interactive Entertainment	SNDA
China Nepstar Chain Drugstore	NPD
Dollar Tree Stores	DLTR
American Eagle Outfitters	AEO
Donaldson	DCI
Polo Ralph Lauren	RL
National Bank of Greece	NBG
Toronto Dominion Bank	TD
WuXi PharmaTech	WX
Chico's FAS	CHS
Daktronics	DAKT

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

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Tuesday May 27th

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: "Realty Check: Who sparked Countrywide CEO Mozilo's "disgusting" e-mail reply?"

Answer: Daniel Bailey Jr.

Squawk On the Street: "The other black gold: On May 22, super-trader Jon Najarian said coal is up more than oil. He recommended buying:"

Answer: Consol Energy

The Call: "In his June investment outlook, Pimco's Bill Gross warned that U.S. inflation statistics were:"

Answer: "Not reflecting reality"

Power Lunch: "In "$135: The Biggest Loser" the Fast Money team warned of companies hurt by oil prices. Which stock did they PAN?"

Answer: PetroChina

Street Signs: "On May 9, Jim Cramer assailed AIG -- and its CEO Martin Sullivan. What did the Mad Money guru call the company?"

Answer: Moronic

Closing Bell: "Web Extra: On May 23, what natural-gas equipment stock did Shawn Reynolds exclusively pick for CNBC.com readers?"

Answer: Exterran

Weekly Bonus Quiz:

Question: "An investors _______ size is the dollar value being invested into a particular security."

Answer: Position

I hope everyone got this one right, because it's verbatim the same question from last week. Let me know if anyone gets a different question.

Also, please let me know if you have any idea what these guys are all about. They confuse me. It's like some strange, finance-themed mime routine.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Defiant Hillary Argues Nomination Still In Doubt, Citing Case of Sirhan v. Kennedy

It has begun.

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Yipes.

With that salvo, it seems pretty clear that at long last, we're witnessing the beginning of the endgame. The first spastic lurch of the long-prohesied Clintonian death rattle.

The prophecy foretells a magnificent and hideous spectacle.

Despite inevitable calls for Hillary to exit gracefully, I think we've banked enough Clinton exposure at this point to suspect those final throes will be anything but graceful. Remember, the spectacle of Gore v. Bush involved a JV Clinton Machinist trying to litigate his way to victory. With the full faith and credit of the remaining Clintonistas backing an intra-party fight over Florida and Michigan (assuming the delegates at stake would toggle the outcome), it promises to be a Circus of Vitriol like we've never seen. In the end, of course, Hillary will (and should) lose that fight.
...
And while the Clinton campaign's death rattle will be a hideous series of backfiring hail Marys, and ultimately, perhaps even a deliberate mutually-assured scorched earth campaign (think final scene in "Predator"), a portion of that final panicked assault will inevitably find its mark and inflict damage on Obama.

This would be a good time to duck and cover. Or crawl inside a lead-lined refrigerator.

Update: Clinton offered some follow-up clarification, blaming her bizarre allusion on Bobby's brother's brain tumor.

"The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever."

Handcrafted by Flip on May 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 2

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Crummy day out there, huh? Slightly better-than-expected home sales data seems unable to jazz anyone to the point of shaking off the oil specter. Plus, I gave you what turned out to be a couple of lemons with yesterday's extra special volatility picks. But hey, at least they were volatile...

The good news, of course, is that today effectively begins Week 3 in the contest (since the first holdings to be scored in the upcoming week will be the positions you establish today by 4 pm). And since it'll be a 4-day week, today's trades are that much more important.

The even better news, according to our super-scientific internal polling, is that the Week 3 prize is the one you'd be most willing to accept (and pay the tax bill on).

Sony Style HD Home Entertainment Makeover

Bring High Definition and the ultimate in theatre technology into your home. This Sony Style HD Home Entertainment Package includes: a flat panel 52” LCD with Full HD 1080p, high-resolution video and surround sound with depth and clarity. You also get the most from the Blu-ray disc player which is enhanced by the advanced audio performance of the Sony Style home theater system with BRAVIA® Theatre Sync™ technology*. Products come with a 3 year extended service plan and white glove delivery.

With an approximate retail value of $5,000, it's still going to be a supplemental punch in the teeth from Uncle Sam, but of all the weekly prizes, the Sony setup handily won highest worth-the-tax-bill honors.

So let's revisit a couple strategy points in anticipation. As discussed, this year's rules make the contest much less of a daily moon-shooting exercise than last year. Multiple accounts are prohibited (beyond your allotted 5), allocations are capped at 25%, and there's no weekly at-large bid for the final round. Still, with nearly 700,000 active portfolios, the 6 highest scores over the 10 weeks (not to mention the highest score each week) will show superlative returns. Returns high enough that a cool-headed, steady run of smart and lucky bets over those 10 weeks will likely give you an impressive - but ultimately worthless - aggregate performance by comparison. Because out of those hundreds of thousands, several are bound to stumble into a series of huge gainers that can't be matched with cool-headed, steady, smart and lucky moves. If even 1 in 100,000 portfolios stumbles into such herculean returns (say it's 300% in aggregate), then your very impressive 180% return will be every bit as useful as a -100% return.

So despite the rules changes, the game does remain a home run contest. Even if you're batting 1,000, if you never get it over the wall, you may as well be armless. That's why I've been advocating strategies like the daily all-ins with earnings reporters in the equity portfolios and the "thrashing monkey" approach to currency trading. It doesn't mean it'll always work out - just as swinging away doesn't guarantee you a home run. But it does put you in a position where you have an opportunity to win, if your daily theses are right more often than their wrong.

Anyway, that's the extent of my strategy jawing, with the following two caveats thrown in for good measure. 1) If you do stumble into a herculean return (e.g. one of your portfolios sees in quick succession a takeover announcement with a huge premium, a nicely levered currency position that suddenly shoots off, a left-for-dead stock that unexpectedly avoids bankruptcy, etc.), it may make sense to wall that portfolio off from the others and stop being so idiotically risk-seeking with it. 2) I could be completely wrong about everything. Early next week, once the leaderboard is a couple weeks seasoned, we'll be able to make somewhat better predictions about what kind of aggregate gains the overall winner will put up by the end of the contest. That, in turn, should give us a better feel on just how risk-seeking we should be.

But for the time being, swing away.

As far as I can tell, we've got just 4 eligible stocks reporting earnings between today's close and Tuesday's open.

Company	Symbol
Modine Manufacturing	MOD
Vodafone Group	VOD
Bank Of Montreal	BMO
Bank of Nova Scotia	BNS

Since you need at least 4 names to fully change out any of your portfolios, you may also want to browse the gutter for any rebound candidates among today's double-digit losers (US Airways, perhaps?).

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Friday May 23rd

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: "Fast Money talked oil plays in the article, "At $133 Who Wins?" What was Guy Adami's trade?"

Answer: Get long oil services

Squawk On the Street: "Market Insider: How did Birinyi's Jeff Rubin rate Boone Pickens' forecasting?"

Answer: Insight most investors lack

The Call: "According to "SUVs And What They're Worth," first-quarter new SUV sales:"

Answer: Plunged 23%

Power Lunch: "CNBC Stock Blog: In "Restaurant Stocks: Feast and Famine" which firm was praised for sales "actually doing the best"?"

Answer: Red Robin Gourmet Burgers

Street Signs: "The Best Premium Liquor Brands slideshow praises Moet & Hennessey's 10 Cane rum. What gives it its essence?"

Answer: Trinidadian sugar cane

Closing Bell: "On May 21, why did Jim Cramer suggest buying Freeport McMoRan?"

Answer: Chinese demand

Handcrafted by Flip on May 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Either It's a Bubble... Or We're All Immediately Screwed

Oil Depending on how you look at it, this chart is either very encouraging and absolutely terrifying.

Every month or so it’s nice to look back and see how far the oil market has come. After all, crude-oil prices have doubled from this time one year ago. After a steady, meandering move through the middle of the decade through to 2005, crude’s pace has quickened, never more so than in the last few months.

Some believe the contract has hit the parabolic stage of the uptrend — where prices are driven nearly vertical, something that has occurred in many a stock, index, or commodity over the years.

Either crude oil is a garden variety bubble (i.e. its price increases are now fueled primarily by speculation of future price increases) getting very near its bursting point, or... the parabolic surge is legit and the price per barrel ought to punch through $1,000 within the hour.

As was the case with tech stocks a decade ago and housing prices a few years ago, this near verticality tends to precede not an instantaneous infinite price increase, but a rapid and rather drastic deflation in the asset in question.

On the other hand, if you're squarely of the end-of-the-world mindset, you've got an easy solution. Buy a single crude futures contract, let it ripen for a few hours, then spend your near-infinite wealth on a tastefully appointed solid gold bomb shelter where you can ride out economic armageddon in style.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 2

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

So how's everyone doing on the currency trading? Me, I've managed to turn a small profit on my simplistic "undervalued dollar" strategy laid out yesterday. If you joined me in those positions, you're already looking at a cool $1,600, so... almost as much as a single trivia question. Whee!

If anyone out there is employing the ultra high-turnover thrashing monkey strategy we discussed, let us know if you're having any success.

I do hope some of you latched onto those 3 extra special stock picks from yesterday, because if you did, they're showering you with handsome one-day gains. (2 of them are, anyway. The third is basically flat.)

As of 12:00 pm:

Longs Drug Stores (LDG): Up 11.3%
Sanderson Farms (SAFM): Up 8.7%
Global Sources (GSOL): Up 0.2%

We'll see if can't suss out a couple of Friday winners this afternoon.

Update: Okay, let's get to it. Same convention as yesterday. The following represents a (probably incomplete) list of the contest-eligible stocks that will report earnings either today after the closing bell or tomorrow before the open.

Among these 13, the 4 in bold at the bottom of the list look somewhat more interesting from an upside volatility-seeking standpoint (based on market cap, number of analysts covering the stock, the range of analysts' estimates, today's price move, historic volatility, and tendency to gap up or down following earnings releases). Among those 4, the 2 in green are worth some extra attention.

Company	Symbol
Aeropostale	ARO
CA	CA
Foot Locker	FL
Gap	GPS
Pacific Sunwear of CA	PSUN
SkillSoft Corp	SKIL
Universal Corp	UVV
Verigy	VRGY
Zumiez	ZUMZ
Alkermes	ALKS
Black Box Corp	BBOX
Aruba Networks	ARUN
Nordic American Tanker	NAT

Alkermes is a Massachusetts-based drug delivery biotech - a smallish company at just $1.4 billion and one whose quarterly earnings have been hard to pin down, despite a lot of analyst coverage. And when it beats expectations, it tends to gap up. 3 quarters ago, it beat expectations by 4 cents and popped more than 12% the next day. This quarter, the high-end estimates are looking for $0.06 per share, 4 cents above the consensus of $0.02. On the other hand, the stock ran up 5% today already, which ought to dampen any further upside that might follow a cheerful earnings report.

Black Box is a little (almost ineligibly small) IT infrastructure company with scant analyst coverage and a tendency to whipsaw around earnings reports. It too is up today (2.5%) in advance of its earnings release, so the remaining upside could be dampened.

Nordic American Tanker is a Bermuda-based oil tanker operator. The stock has been on a tear lately, as the company is enjoying macro tailwinds (e.g. rates are climbing and the industry is shifting steadily toward NAT's dual hulls), but it's pulled back today for whatever reason, just before it releases earnings.

Aruba is a networking and peripherals company that does a lot of work for the federal government. This stock has had the bujeezus drubbed out of it over the last few months. Maybe deservedly so. The catalyzing event for the drubbing was last quarter's pre-release of disappointing quarterly results due to the delay of the federal budget (and consequently a steep fall-off in government-related revenues). The stock is hugely volatile and its market cap is even smaller than BBOX. Recent analyst upgrades have done little to dig the shares out of the mud, but the earnings report might be enough of a trigger. If things look good (or even okay) and this stock is revived, the one-day upside could be significant.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Thursday, May 22nd

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: "Web Exclusive: Which stock did Will Muggia recommend specifically for CNBC.com readers?"

Answer: Chesapeake Energy

Squawk On the Street: "What did Goldman Sachs' Abby Joseph Cohen call a "pretty good hedge against inflation"?"

Answer: Equities in general

The Call: ""Rail moves everything," said Neuberger Berman's Gary Kaminsky. Which railroad stock moves him?"

Answer: Kansas City Southern

Power Lunch: "Options trading: Rebecca Darst says which dental technology firm saw "unusually bullish call activity"?"

Answer: Align Technology

Street Signs: "On May 19, Jim Cramer called which agriculture stock a "great buy"?"

Answer: All of the above ~~Syngenta~~

My. Bad. Many thanks to Roger (et al) in the comments for the correct answer. I answered Syngenta based on Stop Trading!: Ag Stocks Still the Play:

Monday, 19 May 2008

Regular viewers of Mad Money know Cramer’s been bullish on agriculture stocks.
Syngenta is one of the few among them not yet at its 52-week high. He called SYG a “great buy,” saying, “Anytime you get a discount…I’d pull the trigger.” That goes for Bunge and Monsanto too, he said.

Bunge and Monsanto were the other choices presented. In my view, he only explicitly called SYG a "great buy" but advised "pulling the trigger" on all three. Apparently that's the wrong interpretation. We got this mess fixed up within the first few minutes after the hour, so hopefully not too many of you missed these points thanks to my error.

Closing Bell: "By The Numbers blog: Which "winning energy stock" had the greatest 6-month percentage change (as of May 20)?"

Answer: Hess (yes, I'm sure)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack

"Kids, You Noticing All This plight?"

It's too bad the Griswolds lived in such primitive times. These internets are getting handier by the day.

SpotCrime is a mashup that plots recent criminal activity onto Google Maps, allowing users to shy away from seedier parts of towns they may not be familiar with.
...
Crimes are depicted as small icons according to the type of incident, and users can filter crimes over a certain date range or time period. Clicking on an icon brings up more detailed information (when available). The site currently supports only a select number of (mostly large) cities, but it says that it is expanding quickly.
...
SpotCrime says that they are offering the service as a free tool to both police stations and the general population. While it’s hard to believe that the police don’t already know about the rougher areas of town, the visual overlays could conceivably held them identify trends. Other potential applications of the data include real estate evaluation, and (for more paranoid users) “safe” driving routes mapped by GPS.

Manhattan

I figured I'd check out my neighborhood (one of the NYPD's lowest crime precincts) and to my surprise, found a couple of very recent shootings within a few blocks. New York is still the safest large city in the country, but when viewed like this, it's a bit unnerving.

And that's just the last 30 days.

Just think, by this time next year, most of those little icons will have become "Law and Order" episodes.

Speaking of headline ripping, did anyone catch last night's season finale?

Wednesday's season finale about a governor and a call girl isn't about Eliot Spitzer, cautions series star Sam Waterston — although it's fair to say anyone, even Waterston, could get a bit confused.

Asked recently if the show was dramatizing Spitzer's story, the actor replied, "That's what we're shooting right now." Then he quickly offered a clarification.

"I shouldn't say we're doing the Eliot Spitzer story. I should say we're doing a story about a politician who gets into trouble because of sexual questions ... involving prostitution," Waterston told The Associated Press.

I didn't even realize they pretended their plots weren't, er, *inspired* by true events, despite the formal on-screen disclaimers about their being wholly fictional. For a while, didn't their ad campaign actually feature the phrase "Ripped from the headlines?"

Handcrafted by Flip on May 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - A New Fly In the Ointment

[Wednesday's trivia answers are over here.]

With the triumphant (and, so far as I can tell, remarkably smooth) return of currency trading this morning, everything suddenly seems almost too quiet (knock on wood). While the tech problems to date have been significant, it's to CNBC's and their IT partners' credit that all pistons now seem to be firing cleanly.

With one exception - a brand new bug to add to the taxonomy, so far as I can tell.

The problem, as tipped to me by a reader, concerns Mechel Open Joint Stock Company (MTL), a Russian mining, steel, and power company, listed through an ADR on the NYSE. Yesterday, Mechel underwent a kind of stock split. The company's ordinary shares themselves didn't split, but the ADR:share ratio changed from 1:3 to 1:1. Whereas each NYSE-traded ADR used to represent 3 shares of the company's stock, each now represents just 1. So the shares appear to have fallen from $169 to $56 overnight (a 67% decline), but on an adjusted basis, they were essentially flat.

In the case of a normal stock split, the system adjusts accordingly and everyone gets on with their lives. But the ADR ratio adjustment must have been a contingency they didn't plan for (and are presumably unaware of).

From the rules:

13. Special Processing of Corporate Actions:

The Contest will process stock splits, mergers and acquisitions, halted/suspended trading, delistings, spin-offs, special cash dividends and ticker symbol changes. These corporate actions will be processed after the close of the markets on the date they occur, and will not count towards a Portfolio’s Equity Account’s number of daily trades.

Certainly it sounds like an ADR ratio adjustment fits the spirit, if not the letter, of that rule. And CNBC's own charting feature shows MTL trading on an adjusted basis in the 50s (not the 160s) before yesterday, so it'd be hard for them to claim this corporate action doesn't warrant a pricing adjustment. Nonetheless, portfolios containing MTL have taken a 67% hit in that position.

But while this was clearly an oversight, the section of the rules immediately following the passage quoted above suggests a troubling out for the contest admins, should they be feeling uncharitable.

In the event that a Participant believes that his/her Portfolio does not properly reflect a corporate action, the Participant must email the Site’s support department no later than 11:59:59 PM on the date of such corporate action, with the stock symbol, type of corporate action, effective date, and the name(s) of the affected Portfolio(s). Adjustments, if any, will be determined by CNBC in its sole discretion, and all such decisions by CNBC are final and binding and are not subject to appeal.

Mechel dates the change May 19th. The actual adjustment (the split, if you will, and therefore the action requiring special processing) is dated May 20th by the NYSE (yesterday), which would suggest it's too late to appeal the mistake. But given the 1-2 day lag in the normal trade execution and portfolio rebalancing process that so beleaguers contest participants, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that a portfolio manager with a splitting stock would expect to see the adjustment take hold the day after the special action (if not later).

I don't see any reason why they'd try to resist this appeal, but past experience and a lot of shared stories from readers suggest there are few problems that are easily and painlessly solved. If anyone else is holding MTL or another ADR that underwent an adjustment (or, frankly, any other oddball special action that you think wasn't processed properly), let us know.

We'll keep you apprised of any resolution.

Update: The issue has been resolved; the contest admins have made the proper adjustments to the portfolios containing MTL.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 2

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Don't forget - currency trading resumes this morning at 9:30.

Update: Anyone tried it out yet? I've just put on a couple of trial positions and so far, so good. I may have mentioned once or twice that currency trading ain't my cup of tea, so I basically split the $100,000 allocation down the middle, with half going long USD/CAD and half going short EUR/USD. If I didn't muck it up, these should both be dollar-bullish positions, with one half measured against the Canadian dollar and the other against the Euro.

You're welcome to join me in that allocation if you don't already have (and don't plan to formulate) a currency strategy any more sophisticated than "the dollar is undervalued relative to euros and loonies" and you're interested in taking the refurbished trading platform for a test drive.

And any currency gurus out there who want to share a few insights with other readers, please have at it in the comments.

In the mean time, CNBC's in-house currency tutoring service has put up a couple of video lessons.

Axel Merk, Manager of the Merk Hard Currency Fund sits down with Sue Herera to discuss the International currency arena: The long-term decline of the U.S. dollar, why Axel advocates buying baskets of currencies and the differences between hard currencies and Asian currencies. Key lessons to help you with your currency trading strategy.

Remember, with the 10:1 leverage, you've got $1,000,000 of currency buying power (even more than your initial stock portfolio allocation) and you can place a seemingly limitless number of intra-day trades, so there's a real opportunity to get ahead (or make up lost ground) with currency trading. The leverage also means there's a real opportunity to lose your shirt, but (to mix metaphors) in a home run competition, losing your shirt is just as bad as coming in 2nd, so you need to swing for the fences. Put otherwise, training a monkey to process random trades that washed your whole portfolio in and out of different positions all day would probably be a better strategy than doing no currency trading. If you don't have a monkey handy, you can perform this task yourself.

I just bought and sold $5,000,000 worth of USD/CHF contracts over 10 trades to confirm that this is the way it works, and indeed it is. Of course I flushed away a couple thousand dollars in about 60 seconds, thanks to the bid-ask spread, but these are the things I do to bring you the goods.

Also, I used a portfolio that was already in the crapper.

For those of you sniffing out volatility on the stocks side, you've got a whole bunch of eligible companies that are reporting earnings tonight or tomorrow morning. For purposes of whittling down to the most likely earnings surprisers and the biggest potential movers, in bold are the companies whose market cap and number of analysts covering the stock are both below the group median. And the three in green are names to which you might want to give extra special consideration.

Company	Symbol
NetApp, Inc.	NTAP
Gamestop Corp.	GME
Computer Sciences Corp	CSC
Salesforce.com	CRM
Suntech Power	STP
Limited Brands	LTD
Hormel Foods	HRL
Patterson Dental	PDCO
Synopsys	SNPS
Dick's Sporting Goods	DKS
NetEase.com	NTES
Nordson	NDSN
AnnTaylor Stores	ANN
Semtech	SMTC
Tech Data Corp	TECD
Barnes and Noble	BKS
Toro	TTC
Bristow Group	BRS
Gymboree	GYMB
Columbus McKinnon	CMCO
Stage Stores	SSI
Sanderson Farms	SAFM
Longs Drug Stores	LDG
Global Sources Limited	GSOL

Global Sources (Bermuda-based, China-focused marketing firm) is as volatile as can be, and currently is down more than 40% year-to-date. Very few analysts cover it and they're frequently way off in their projections. None of this argues for an upside surprise, but there's a good chance of a surprise of some kind and if it's a happy one, the stock's got lots of room overhead.

Sanderson Farms (big chicken outfit out of Mississippi) is another thinly followed small-cap. What sticks out about SAMF is the range of analysts' forecasts regarding tomorrow morning's earnings report. The "consensus" is looking for a loss of $0.07 per share, but the EPS range stretches from a loss of $0.18 to income of $0.07. And last quarter, actual results exceeded the consensus by 1,400%. Here, you're betting contrary to the popular opinion that rising prices of commodities found in (in this case) animal feed will put pressure on profitability. But so far, Sanderson has managed to push it through via higher chicken prices.

Longs Drug Stores is a standout among the less-watched subgroup simply because it's gotten a lot cheaper over the last week. It could be that people think they've got the drop on the earnings report and that it will disappoint. Or it could be that people are pooh-poohing the company's decision to partner with Google in the launch of the slightly controversial Google Health. To me, those both seem like potential opportunities - driving shares lower just in time for you to grab some at bargain prices, right before the earnings catalyst.

Wednesday, May 21st

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: "According to Boone Pickens, how much is the U.S. sending overseas for oil?"

Answer: 4x the Iraq War's cost

Squawk On the Street: "On Tuesday, Jim Cramer said it was "time to ring the register" and sell. But what railroad stock was he BULLISH on?"

Answer: CSX

The Call: "Short seller Doug Kass mentioned Warren Buffett and a famous tyrant in a CNBC interview. Which tyrant?"

Answer: Napoleon Bonaparte

Power Lunch: "Which "gloom & doom" figure told CNBC Monday "I think the economy really stinks"?"

Answer: Marc Faber (whiner)

Street Signs: "What "Web Extra" Internet stock did Darren Chervitz recommend exclusively for CNBC Stock Blog readers?"

Answer: Shutterfly

Closing Bell: "In "How To Prosper On Retiring Boomers" which stock did Jordan Kimmel link to the post-WWII generation?"

Answer: Research in Motion

Handcrafted by Flip on May 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Obama's Passes

Passes In her syndicated column, Michelle Malkin reflects on the impressive portfolio of gaffes Barack Obama has managed to accumulate on the campaign trail, and the seemingly endless passes granted to him by a smitten media.

All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of “potatoe.” The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush’s questions about new scanner technology at a grocers’ convention to brand him permanently as out of touch.

But what about Barack Obama? The guy’s a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign...

By Michelle's count, he's up to at least 9 Potatoe-class betrayals of his remarkably tenuous grasp on geography, numbers, world languages, his own voting record, and the general distinction between things that are "factual" vs. "made up by him".

I'd humbly submit Obama's inability to peg the U.S. population within a hundred million as the 10th.

But make no mistake - while Dan Quayle is a moronic man-child and Bush is a booze-addled dimwit, the Candidate of Hope and Light is just trail-weary from a grueling campaign. The weariness-induced error rate of the man asking for one of the world's most grueling jobs also accounts for the factual failings of Obama's written memoirs and year-ago speeches. Somehow. Whatever, quit hounding the man. What are you, racist?

(Ed's got more on this.)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Evel Caninevel

Behold the greatest/dumbest dog in the known world. (Mild content warning for some adult language.)

(HT: Ace)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Currency Trading Resumes Wed. 5/21

[Tuesday's trivia answers are over here.]

If you're a registered participant in the Portfolio Challenge, you've probably received this rather surprising e-mail:

We're happy to tell you that Currency Trading in the Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge will be operational as of Wednesday, May 21st at 9:30am ET. Although Currency Trading will begin later than Equity Trading, Week 2 will end on Friday May 23 at 4:00PM (Eastern) for both parts of the Contest.

Don't forget that 10% of each of your portfolios has been allocated to currency trading, and you can virtually trade currencies in real time. Everyone's Currency Account has been reset to 100,000 CNBC Bucks.

New to the currency markets? Don't worry - we've got a special series called "Cashing In" available in Contest Central to help you learn the basics. You can also check out CNBC.com's comprehensive coverage of the currency markets to help guide your trades.

Of course, time will tell whether it actually works this time, but I need to eat some tentative crow for having predicted that currency trading would never get back online.

Anyway, this should be interesting. Have a read through the rules (the currency trading appendix is at the end) ahead of time if you haven't already, as they're pretty involved.

Unlike stocks, currency trading is available throughout the session and trades are processed in real-time, rather than at the end of each session, as with stocks. That means there's an opportunity to gain serious ground on stocks-only traders. What's more (and I neglected to notice this until now), the currency portfolios employ 10:1 leverage, meaning you've got $1,000,000 of buying power. Also unlike the stock portfolio, there is no maximum number of currency trades you can make in a given day (though there is an artificial transaction cost of 1 pip ($0.0001) built into each trade).

If (and it's still a meaningful if) everything works this time, the portfolio leverage and unlimited real-time trading could well mean a savvy currency trader out there winds up stealing the lead from an equity trader, despite the 1.5 week head start.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 2

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Well, James Fox is proving himself no one-trick pony. Still atop the leaderboard, he's off last week's pace (returning 6.5% per day on his initial $900,000), but not by much, adding another 4.4% yesterday (ex-bonus bucks). I'm guessing he hung onto his Solar Fun (SOLF), which would have been good for another 10% yesterday. And since he bought it last week before its huge run-up, it may now account for as much as a third of his allocation. Even so, SOLF would have only given Fox's overall portfolio 3-4% yesterday, so he's doing something else right too.

Meanwhile, I've managed to maintain my tied-for-first-place standing in the currency trading.

Update: Currency trading is back! Details here.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Tuesday, May 20th

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: "In March, Bernie McGinn was on the money with his Ford pick. Early this month, what pharma stock did he recommend?"

Answer: PFE

Squawk On the Street: "Energy Source blog: What did John Kilduff say about Iran's possible market vulnerability?"

Answer: It's more self-inflicted

The Call: "Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker: What was BRK's top holding by dollar value (as of March 31)?"

Answer: KO

Power Lunch: "According to Paul Forward of Stifel Nicolaus, how much coal does America have?"

Answer: About a 250-year supply

Street Signs: "In "Short Stories," what did Fast Money trader Pete Najarian call "the most confident plays"?"

Answer: Coal & NatGas

Closing Bell: ""States with the Highest Foreclosure Rates" slideshow: How many Nevada households got notices as of April?"

Answer: 1 in every 146

Handcrafted by Flip on May 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Professor Obama Rhetorically Exterminates 100 Million Americans

To borrow a line from another learned academian, the Jedi are going to feel this one.

We can't -- drive our SUVs and you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on you know, 72 degrees at all times, and whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country's going say OK.

You guys go ahead and keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy. Even though [the United States] only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine.

Still basking in the erudite afterglow of his discovery of 7 additional American states, Obama's command of the detailed minutia of the nation he wants to lead continues to impress.

In fact, the country accounts for closer to 5% of the world's humanity. Judging by Census Bureau data, Obama's estimate pegs the U.S. population at just over 200 million.

This is slightly more *nuanced* than his 57 state whiff, in that it requires an actual arithmetic calculation. But if you're going to lecture people from on high about how they ought to live their lives, it's probably worth the mental energy to work out just how many people you're lecturing (at least to the nearest hundred million).

Handcrafted by Flip on May 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

"Why You're Wrong About the Right"

Wrongright I attended a book launch party last night hosted by a couple friends of mine who have just published Why You're Wrong About the Right: Behind the Myths - The Surprising Truth About Conservatives.

Hitting bookstores (and Amazon) today, the book was written by Brett Joshpe and S.E. Cupp, but it also boasts an incredible cast of contributors (Newt Gingrich, George Will, Laura Ingraham, Pat Toomey, Jonah Goldberg, and a few dozen other notables).

Lifted from the online excerpt:

"There are confounding and contradictory myths about the typical Republican. He is both the gun-toting hick, driving barefoot and shirtless in his pickup truck, and the loafer-wearing WASP, sipping scotch on a yacht or lounging in the polo club. The latter stereotype may include the benefits of sophistication and wealth, but by no means extends to likeability. CNN Headline News pundit and radio personality Glenn Beck said of this contradictory imagining of the Republican elite by the left, 'When you think of red states, do you think of homes on Central Park and in the Hollywood Hills, or do you think of stupid, redneck hicks in Oklahoma? The media can't have it both ways. There is only one elite, and it's the left, and that's why the Democrats have solidly lost their connection to the Democrats that were like my grandparents."

"The conservative who hasn't faced the Disbelieving Liberal hasn't gotten out much. The DL is, after all, everywhere. He is on planes and trains, in restaurants and bars, in classrooms and office lunchrooms, and he just...can't...believe...('Are you serious?!') that you, his drinking buddy, his ballgame buddy, the guy he discusses sexual misadventures with, are a conservative. And after grilling you on your stand on assorted political issues (and then running to the bathroom to wash his hands) he will leave you, betrayed and shocked, as if he just found out he was adopted."

"Perhaps no stereotype about conservatives is more indelible, more recognizable, evoked with more regularity, and uttered with more passion (and less evidence) than the myth of the uncaring Republican, his heart as black as an oil spill in an endangered seal preserve, eyes as steely and piercing as a razor blade in a piece of Halloween candy, and blood cold as a glacier untouched by the ravages of global warming. Republicans are routinely painted as uncaring, unfeeling, stoic, and sober. We joke that Dick Cheney's heart problems stem from his not actually having one. And we hypothesize that Republican policy, domestic and foreign, is born of a severely misanthropic, even homicidal, urge to effect on a national scale the kind of tone set at a funeral for a school bus accident."

It's the perfect graduation gift for that student who's about to become a taxpayer.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Over .000001 Billion Served

As of 9:00 tonight, we've officially sold more than 1,000 of these hopeful and uplifting Obama-edition 57-star American flag lapel pins.

Accordingly, we can no longer offer you the opportunity to be the first on your block to have one, but the good news is that you can still avoid being the last on your block to sport this terrbily en vogue political accessory.

Better yet, buy a fistful and give them away to those friends and family members who enjoy pledging ironic support for the geographically challenged Presidential hopeful.

At $1.99 apiece, they're the best bargain you'll find this side of the Kenwood District!

Handcrafted by Flip on May 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I Can't Believe It's Not Ipecac!

Tattoo The latest in DIY poison control.

(HT: MM)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Another Sutbbornly Non-Recessionary Data Point

Leading Indicators Today, we're faced with yet another glaring bit of evidence of the harsh reality that the U.S. economy is likely in neither recession, nor imminent danger of slipping into one. From the Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators for the month of April:

"The leading index edged up by 0.1 percent in April, the same increase as in March, after declining for five straight months. These data certainly reflect a weak economy but not one in recession. Moreover, the small increases in the Leading Index in both March and again in April could be a signal that the economy may not weaken further."

The Conference Board reports that the Coincident Index was unchanged in April and March, following a -0.3 percent decline in February. The Lagging Index increased by 0.1 percent in April, following a 0.4 percent rise in March and February.

Coming on the heel's of last week's Fed survey showing a dwindling minority of economists predicting recession, this is another dose tough news for media outlets and Presidential candidates with vested interests in seeing the U.S. economy fare poorly.

Wall Street, on the other hand, appears less conflicted, with the news helping pour a little fuel on a morning rally.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 2

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Well, welcome to the first day of Week 2 (which, as I mentioned on Friday, is actually the second day of Week 2 from trading perspective (though, of course that's a moot point if the system wouldn't let you enter trades on Friday afternoon)).

In any event, we now have some baseline data from Week 1 that might be useful in the contest from here on out. Most notably, we've got a precedent for the high weekly percentage gain. Last week, James Fox put up a gain of 31.8%. Because of the lag in trade execution, last week was effectively a 4-day week. So strip out $60,000 in Bonus Bucks and you're left with a compound daily growth rate of 6.5% (on a base of $900,000). In a normal 5-day week, that equates to an aggregate gain of 37.0%.

So consider that your provisional high water mark for a leaderboard-topping weekly gain.

For those wondering about last week's technical difficulties, the contest admins claim everything's fixed. If you contacted CNBC Customer Care, you likely got a form response similar to this (excerpted):

We were having problems with some users not being able to see the portfolios. This issue has been fixed. You are instructed to check the portfolios to ensure that you are able to access all your portfolios.

Please be aware that you will be able to play the Contest only on Microsoft Windows: 2000 or XP with Internet Explorer. Also note that Browsers like Firefox, AOL, Netscape is currently not supported. We regret for the inconvenience caused.

Those restrictions, incidentally, are nowhere to be found in the contest rules. And it's a fairly heroic assumption that all players would have been using the same browser and operating system.

For me, my portfolios this morning are basically a butchered up version of what they looked like before the final hour of trading on Friday. In two cases, some but not all of the orders I submitted were processed. In the other three portfolios, none of Friday's attempted trades were executed. Let's take them at their word for the time being that the problem is fixed, but the lesson here is still never trade during the final hour. That's a bummer of a rule, since it's highly advantageous to trade late in the session, given the once-a-day trade execution scheme (e.g. if you've got a stock you think is going to beat earnings expectations after the bell, you might be less interested if it runs up several percent late in the normal session), but for now it probably warrants heeding.

And if you've been holding your breath for currency trading to come online, the status quo (i.e. complete non-functionality) appears to be holding.

Good luck this week! This week's prize is a Sea Island Golf Getaway (which most of you don't intend to accept, should you win).

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive:

Monday, May 19th

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: "In the story "Hogan's Heroes," Jeffries' Art Hogan recommended which biotech stock?"

Answer: Charles River

Squawk On the Street: "In "Future Trade: Web 5.0" what Un-"sexy" stock did Jeff Macke recommend?"

Answer: Intel

The Call: "On May 16, CNBC.com's "Two Way Street" blog got its name from a presumably loyal reader. Who?"

Answer: John Ware

Power Lunch: "In the CNBC Stock Blog, "A Big Buy On Brazil," what was Tom Del Zoppo's advice?"

Answer: Buy Petrobras

Street Signs: "In "Thunder To Battle iPhone?!" Jim Goldman quotes which tech news & review site?"

Answer: The Boy Genius

Closing Bell: "On May 16, Jim Cramer said he'd only recommend ONE Indian stock. Name it."

Answer: Sterlite Industries

Weekly Bonus Quiz:

Question: "An investors _______ size is the dollar value being invested into a particular security."

Answer: Position

Handcrafted by Flip on May 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

McCain On SNL

Formulaic fare (deadpan ownership of the "oldness" issue), though capably delivered.

Captain Ed digs up this somewhat more entertaining (if aurally painful) appearance from 2006. That was well before McCain stumbled into the role of party standard-bearer, of course, so the writers (and the audience, apparently), were more engaged by a premise celebrating the maverick's politics (and ridiculing those of a far-left detractor) than they ever will be again.

Update: Ace has the two other Presidential sketches from last night, including McCain on Weekend Update and Armisen/Poehler as Obama/Clinton.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Now Is zee Time In zee Campaign Vhen Ve Dance

Do you have a blank wall in your home that needs to be creepied up a little? Then why not shell out $40 for a poster of Hillary Clinton doing her best impression of Dieter from Sprockets.

To be clear, this, um... *stylized* print is official Clinton campaign gear, being sold through the campaign website, not by a third party bent on mocking the floundering Presidential candidate.

Why so expensive, you ask?

Hey, it's not cheap to fabricate vegan posters.

Union printed in USA using 100% wind power and vegetable-based inks.

I trust the vegetables and wind they used were also locally grown and blown.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - More Technical Difficulties

I don't want to alarm anybody, but it appears the unthinkable has happened - the CNBC mock trading site is... not working. At least it isn't for me.

True, it hasn't really "worked" since the contest began, but at least you could submit equity orders if you were patient enough. It might just be a traffic issue, given that we're in the final hour of the trading day, but when I log in I'm first told I have no portfolios. I click "Create New" and the system's memory is temporarily jogged - up come my 5 existing portfolios with the correct names, values, and gain/loss information. And no sooner do I click on one of them, than I'm told "Portfolio not found."

Fun!

To be perfectly honest, this error is only occurring about 80% of the time. Occasionally, I can actually get into a portfolio. And upon attempting to reallocate, instead of the tedious trade confirmations that usually pop up, there's a new one called "Your pending order has failed."

Good times.

But the real excitement begins when you try to close out of a portfolio you've just failed to reallocate. Perhaps out of a well-earned sense of having failed its end user, the system simply does itself in and blurps out a final error message before completely crapping out.

Microsoft JScript runtime error '800a01b6'
Object doesn't support this property or method
/challenge/resources/lib/asp/datafunctions.asp, line 209

Update: Lots of you (possibly all of you) are encountering the same problem, based on the comments coming in, here and on the other recent posts. Sounds like it started at about 3:30, which would tend to support the theory that it buckled under the weight of too many simultaneous traders trying to get their orders submitted by 4:00.

I'll update this post with any response from CNBC.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Prize Poll

[Answers to Friday's Bonus Bucks trivia questions are over here, if that's what you're looking for.]

So assume for a moment that you manage to best your hundreds of thousands of rivals and walk away with one of the 10 non-cash prizes that the Portfolio Challenge awards to the trader with the biggest gain each week. Would you accept it?

Based on the approximate retail value of the various prize packages (and assuming a 30% tax rate), you could get hit with a bill of nearly $10,000.

Swallow your graciousness for a moment and share your honest, anonymous intentions with your fellow traders. Which prizes are sufficiently enticing that you'd buy them for 70% off? (They're described in more detail on the contest site.)

Select as many as apply.

I left a "None of the above" response off the list, so as to mitigate the hurt feelings you're bound to inflict on the contest sponsors. So just weigh in in the comments if you'd turn your nose up at all the non-cash prizes.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Ire In the Sky

Two days, two impossibly bizarre tales of aerial hijinx.

A British holiday plane was diverted to France after a couple became embroiled in a "drunken" air-rage fight at 35,000ft over the Mediterranean.

Eyewitnesses said the woman passenger "took a bite out of the face" of her boyfriend or husband.
...
One eyewitness said: "A couple who had too much to drink had a real set-to. They were in their late 20s. She bit him on the face and took a chunk out of his cheek. The crew tried to restrain them but they were mainly female.

"Two off-duty police officers joined in to help when they saw what was happening.

"The Captain ordered both the man and the woman to be restrained but it looked like there was only one restraint. The plane diverted to Lyon where they were arrested and detained by the local gendarmes."

Previously: Fire In the Sky

(HR: HA Headlines)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

U.N.: World Teeters On Brink Of Ruin

Meh.

The world economy is "teetering on the brink" of a severe downturn and is expected to grow only 1.8 percent in 2008, the United Nations said in its mid-year economic projections Thursday.

That's down from a global growth rate of 3.8 percent in 2007, and the downturn is expected to continue with only a slightly higher growth of 2.1 percent in 2009, the U.N. report said.

The mid-year update of the U.N. World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008 blamed the downturn on further deterioration in the U.S. housing and financial sectors in the first quarter, which is expected to "continue to be a major drag for the world economy extending into 2009."

The U.N. picked a bad day to play housing boogeyman, with housing starts posting what even the AP Economics desk concedes is a "surprising" rebound. In fact, new home construction rose by a robust 8.2% in April (the swiftest growth in two years), versus expectations of a 1.5% decline.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the U.N.'s economic crystal ball is - to put it charitably - a cloudy one.

The group's World Economic Situation and Prospects underestimates global output year after year after year, yet people continue to lend it credibility. From the U.N.'s own archived data, their downside bias (even in these mid-year forecasts, when the data ought to be partially knowable) is pretty glaring.

Based on the average lowball in recent years (half a percentage point), the U.N.'s brink-teetering 1.8% forecast for 2008 is likely to clock in at closer to 2.3%.

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Actual	4.00%	3.40%	3.90%	3.70%	2.30%
Midyear Estimate	3.25%	3.25%	3.30%	3.20%	1.80%
Lowball	-0.75%	-0.15%	-0.60%	-0.50%	-0.50%

Handcrafted by Flip on May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

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%

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 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack

Fire In the Sky

This is a case of a news story gone horribly, implausibly wrong.

A 19-year-old flight attendant angry at having to work a route set a fire in an airplane bathroom, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing, authorities say.

Eder Rojas, of Woodbury, Minn., was arrested in Minneapolis on Wednesday. He is being prosecuted in Fargo, where the Compass Airlines flight with 72 passengers and four crew members landed safely on May 7, after smoke filled the back. No injuries were reported.
...
Authorities said Rojas asked for extra paper towels and tissue before the plane left Minneapolis. He allegedly took a lighter from another flight attendant's home earlier that day and had it with him when he went through the security checkpoint.
...
The court documents say Peterka called Rojas, who was assigned passengers in the back of the flight, and asked him to check the bathroom. Rojas, another flight attendant and a passenger were credited with quickly putting out the flames with fire extinguishers, authorities said.

Sorry... I'm confused. Was this a Mad Lib? If the Coen brothers had written anything so ludicrous, they'd have been drummed out of the quirky movie business.

None of these facts make any sense.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 1

[Scroll to the bottom for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Good news, bad news today. I don't know about you, but I managed to move all 5 of my portfolios close to zero yesterday. The down ones improved and the up ones pulled back. The resulting numbers are wholly unbefitting the reckless, volatilitophiliac strategy I've been employing.

Anyway, for what it's worth, my best and worst are up 5.8% and down 4.6%, respectively, which translates to a ranking range of 5,148 (top 0.9%) to 542,249 (top 99.5%).

The leaderboard ranks, meanwhile, continue to show big numbers, with top-ranked Mark Williams putting up more than 21% (including bonuses) over the two days of performance currently reflected in portfolio values. Mark, if you (or anyone on the leaderboard) happen by here and want to let us know what your picks were this week, we're eager to hear. [See update below]

As for those World Series tickets on the line for this week's high scorer, I'd keep an eye on Peter LoBrutto. With a 17.5% week-to-date return, he's well behind Williams, but 4 or more of LoBrutto's portfolios share the identical performance, so he has the luxury of spreading his chips across several different bets going into the final reallocation of the week.

Meanwhile, in currency trading, I'm pleased to report I'm doing remarkably well and continue to maintain my tied-for-first-place standing.

I'm going to dispense with today's slate of eligible earnings reporters, seeing as yesterday's crop turned out somewhat abysmally (Agilent is a notable exception, with shares up nearly 7% today), but I'll deposit them in the comments in case you're looking for high volatility plays to make today.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Update: From the comments, #2 on the leaderboard Thiru Chandrahasan stopped by and was kind enough to share his picks, which were Bally Technologies (BYI), Canadian Solar (CSIQ), DTS Inc. (DTSI), and EnergySolutions (ES).

That was good enough for a 21% jump, through yesterday's close (though possibly softening today, depending on whether Thiru has since adjusted the holdings). Good luck during the rest of the week. If you manage to bump Williams from the top spot, be sure to wave to us from the World Series.

Thursday, May 15th

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: "On May 14, Pimco's Mohamed El-Erian warned that the Fed is:"

Answer: Particularly challenged

Squawk On the Street: "Jeffries' managing director Paul Fremont loves dirty coal. On May 6, he recommended which energy stock?"

Answer: Allegheny Energy

The Call: "What did Jim Cramer call "the Tony Soprano stock"?"

Answer: Waste Management - No, it wasn't Emperors' Club VIP)

Power Lunch: "Web video hunt: Strategist James Altucher spoke on the May 14 Street Insider segment. What color was his tie?"

Answer: No tie - Sneaky... they seem to be trying to move away from questions that are answerable with a simple keyword search; now you actually need to find and watch specific videos. (Or you can just return here.)

Street Signs: "On May 6, Fast Money asked "Is The Housing Crisis Over?" Guy Adami said the best trade was:"

Answer: Home Depot

Closing Bell: "In the slideshow, "Highest Paid CEOs," which big boss has the No. 1 paycheck?"

Answer: John Thain

Handcrafted by Flip on May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack

The Lumbering Delicacy: Tasty Polar Bear Recipes

Today, the U.S. Department of the Interior declared the polar bear a "threatened" species, citing melting sea ice and a population explosion among the noble animal's only natural predator.

Illustrating a rare mastery of causality, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne conceded that, ''This listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting." What the listing will do is surrender some authority over economic development and energy exploration to environmental special interest groups who can now wield the withering bears as a legally protected would-be casualty of the ravages of man's heartless industrialization.

The only problem, of course, is that there's little scientific evidence that polar bear populations are in decline (and even some indications that they're on the upswing). So, rather than cause Kempthorne et al to lose face, it's incumbent upon responsible Americans to do their part to help thin out the herd (or at least keep it from thriving any more vibrantly), lest this ruling come under ridicule.

With that in mind, we've collected some of the finest recipes for this great white northern treat, just in time for summer cookout season.

Polar Bear Stew

Ingredients:

4 pounds (1.8 kg) polar bear meat

Water to cover

3 tablespoons (45ml)salt

1 1/2 cups (360 ml) dried potato

1 cup (340 ml) celery flakes

1 tablespoon (15ml) dry union

2 cups (480 ml) dehydrated carrots

1/2 cup (120ml) melted butter

1 3/4 cups (420 ml) flour

1 teaspoon (5ml) garlic powder or garlic salt

3/4 teaspoon (3ml) pepper

Cut meat into bite-sized pieces and boil in salted water for 1 1/2 hours or more. Then add dry vegetables; mix melted butter with flour, blend in seasonings and add to meat. Cook 15 minutes longer. The stew is ready. Makes eight to ten servings

Recipe from: Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans; Norma Silook, Gambell, Saint Lawrence Island

When preparing your bear, remember to cook it thoroughly to avoid nasty Trichinosis. And never dine on polar bear liver, which is poisonous. The irony of your savage appetite for innocent flesh resulting in your own demise will be of little consolation.

Roast Polar Bear

Trim all fat from the roast. Wash well. Soak meat for at least 2 hours in water, salt and vinegar. Remove and pat dry. Place meat in a roaster, lay strips of bacon on top and place quarters of onion beside it. Roast at 350 degrees F. for about 3 hours. 15 minutes before serving, remove bacon strips, coat top of roast with butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast another 15 minutes and drizzle butter on top two or three times during this period. Serve Hot. Serves 6 to 8.

Recipe from: Northern Cookbook, edited by Eleanor A. Ellis, Information Canada 1973

Come summer, backyard grillmasters can sizzle up juicy Nanuk steaks to sate the evil bloodthirst of the whole family. But what's the preferred wine to serve with polar bear? Are these proud creatures surf or turf? Norwegian restaurateur André Grytbakk recommends a full-bodied bordeaux to complement your polar bear.

"Polar bear is a rough kind of meat so you need a heavy type of wine to go with it..."

Grytbakk has to know this kind of information. He is the manager of Huset, a top-notch restaurant in Longyearbyen, a town of 1,982 inhabitants nestled amid dramatic snow-capped mountains.

So how do you get your hands on a side of polar bear without running afoul of the Interior Department or joining the Dharma Initiative? In Longyearbyen, they go by the "He's coming right for us" rule.

Thousands of polar bears roam the islands, and although - thankfully - it's strictly forbidden to hunt this endangered species, it is possible to kill them if they are about to devour you. But before any unethical hunters reading this post board a plane for Longyearbyen with rifles at the ready, the circumstances of the kill have to be truly life-threatening: the governor of Svalbard investigates every shooting thoroughly.

In northern Canada, it's a little easier. If you've got a few hundred bucks and a good parka, you're ready to load for bear.

$50.00cdn for a non resident hunting license.
$750.00cdn for a polar bear trophy.
6% GST on top of the above fees.
-------------------------------------------
Grand Total of: $848.00

Bon appetit, you murderous glutton.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Battle Of the Proxy Incumbents, Revisited

Hey, neat. The RNC seems to be coming here for its talking points, specifically the Obama-as-Carter's-2nd-term motif. How flattering.

In fairness, as Ed Morrissey notes, this inevitable comparison is among the lower-hanging fruit on the Obama tree. But it's still nice to see it finally being picked.

Previously: Battle Of the Proxy Incumbents

Click for larger size.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - The Airing Of Grievances

The Festivus Pole So, as you're likely aware if you've been playing the game and are at least mildly sentient, the CNBC mock trading platform has encoutnered some, er... technical difficulties. Currency trading, for instance, got bollocksed up the first day and was promptly torn down by the admins, yet to re-appear. But even the equity trading has fallen somewhat short of stability (somewhat befuddlingly, as this is the third year of the contest).

Based on the performance rankings, there appear to be 510,000 or so active portfolios, which means there are at least 102,000 registered traders (up to 5 portfolios/trader). But last year's contest had roughly 220,000 traders at the outset and grew swiftly from there, so the size of this year's user base alone shouldn't present any new tech burdens.

The most common problem I'm encountering is a "Page not found" error (no matter which section of the site I browse to) in the main content frame. Logging out and back in seems to remedy the error, so it's little more than a mild nuisance. But a lot of you have been writing in and/or leaving comments about the problems you're encountering, so I thought we'd open up a post devoted to your beefs with the contest.

In addition to the many technical issues (can't view portfolios, can't process trades, trades already entered spontaneously disappear, etc.), we're also welcoming general "fairness" grievances. The rules are what the rules are, of course, and other than cases of real ambiguity, I'd be surprised if the administrators were to consider reversing something simply because it's a crap rule wreaking unintended consequences. Still, it can't hurt to let them know you're peeved about certain things. You're probably not alone.

To wit, one reader e-mails his dissatisfaction with the trivia bonus time window. These questions (which amount to $12,000 or 1.2% of your initial allocation every day) can only be answered during the day - after each question appears on the site (the last one going up at 3 pm), but before 4 pm, at which point they all disappear. This is how the rules spelled things out, but it's a fatal disadvantage to anyone who can't be logged in between 3pm and 4pm. I understand the contest is meant to drum up viewership, both of the shows and the online content, but in an effort to drag people back to the site several times per day, they're likely losing otherwise interested participants who can't simply get online at the right time and know they can't compete without those $60,000 in weekly bonuses.

Whatever bone it is you have to pick, you can plead your case to the admins at
customercare@support.cnbc.com and/or let us know in this thread. You may find someone else has encountered (and possibly resolved) the same issues.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 1

[Scroll for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Results! It's day 3 of the contest and we've just had our first portfolio recalculation. Because of the way the game processes trades, your portfolios' performance currently will reflect only Tuesday's market action (and any Bonus Bucks you've earned to date).

The first place trader, Taylor Forman, notched up a mighty 15.5%. Assuming he's gotten the maximum available $24,000 in bonuses, that's still a 1-day move of 13.1%. Not bad, considering you can't allocate more than 25% of your portfolio to a single stock. The minimum gain required to hit the inaugural leaderboard was 11.1% (8.7% before bonuses).

As I mentioned yesterday, my first day volatility plays were hit-or-miss, but my best performing portfolio managed to scrape out 7.2%, which translates to 821st place out of (something like) 512,000. My worst performer... 509,918th place. Less wonderful.

Yesterday, I also noted a few stocks that might invite some of that sweet, sweet volatility during today's session and they appear to be fulfilling their promise. CGV Veritas (CGV) for instance opened down 4% - whee! Nano/solar play Applied Materials (AMAT) opened down nearly 2%. Deere & Co. (DE) was down almost 6% at the open. And Whole Foods (WFMI)... well the less said about Whole Foods the better.

CommVault Systems (CVLT) is the bright spot today, jumping more than 11% at the open. Happily, I maxed it out in 4 of my portfolios - I just hope it's strong enough to salve the wounds inflicted by some of the others.

So far, so good. My 821st place (what color ribbon is that, incidentally?) portfolio is up another 4.4% intraday, which would give it just enough to crack the leaderboard, so long as everyone else stays perfectly motionless. Which I'm sure they will.

But assuming things pivot and deteriorate horribly before the closing bell, make sure you don't let big declines scare you off. In a contest where if you're not first (or in the top 6 anyway), you're last, putting up nice, consistent, tiny little gains is just as bad as losing your shirt. You don't necessarily need to chase earnings reporters, but you do need to keep swinging for the fences.

If you're still looking for ideas for today's reallocation, these are 7 eligible companies that will report earnings tonight or tomorrow morning and might be worth a look.

Symbol	Name
A	Agilent Technologies
CTRP	Ctrip.com International
ELP	Companhia Paranaense de Energia
MPEL	Melco PBL Entertainment
NGG	National Grid
STV	China Digital TV Holding
URBN	Urban Outfitters

My favorite (in terms of best opportunity to show a sizable one day pop, irrespective of downside risk) would have to be China Digital (STV). There are at least 7 others (ASYS, CRE, GILT, NEON, SLRY, and SPTN) set to release earnings which should be eligible (they meet the market cap and trading volume requirements), but for whatever reason, they are not. Add it to the list of grievances.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Wednesday, May 14th

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: "In Monday's Fast Money Web Extra, what M&A pair did the FM traders discuss?"

Answer: XM/Sirius

Squawk On the Street: "How much did super sports agent David Falk sell his agency, FAME, for in 1998?"

Answer: $100 million

The Call: "Short Seller Trivia: In the May 1 "Market Insider" blog, which green stock did shorts want badly?"

Answer: Canadian Solar

(Bad choice, shorts. Canadian Solar netted us a cool 19.6% yesterday. Ricky Gervais was made to dance in celebration. What a timely trivia question, though...)

The Call: "What casino-resort company did billionaire Ron Baron recommend on Tuesday?"

Answer: Wynn Resorts

Street Signs: "In the slideshow, 10 Biggest Entrepreneurial Mistakes, what is the No. 5 (Five) error?"

Answer: Dazed & Confused

Closing Bell: "In the story "Homebrew Heads To Your Gas Tank," what's the "true cost" of the EFuel100 MicroFueler?"

Answer: Around $5,000

Got a grievance about the contest? Air it.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Media Prima Donnas Gone Wild

The recent emergence of some choice on-air moments by Sue Simmons and Bill O'Reilly inspired this sensational compendium of the 10 best on-camera meltdowns (including both Bill and Sue's respective tirades).

F-bombs galore, so observe this *blue content* warning before clicking.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

With Deepest Condolences To the AP Economics Desk

According to the Philadelphia Fed, economists are climbing down off the recession ledge (that minority of economists who thought we were on the brink of recession are, anyway).

The so-called "Anxious Index" now indicates less than 28% of economists surveyed believe the economy will slip into recession next quarter. Having peaked at 43% this cycle, the AI failed to reach even its lowest of recession-era peaks observed over the last 40 years.

This might seem like cheerworthy news, but please try to keep in mind the recessionistas and professional gloomsayers whose lives become ever drearier when beset by such good news.

(HT: Odd Numbers)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 1

[Scroll for answers to today's Bonus Bucks trivia questions.]

Let's give this another shot, shall we. Yesterday, things got off to a bumpy start, as technical difficulties prevented many traders from accessing their portfolios and/or making trades and/or avoiding Spontaneous Disappearing Order Syndrome.

Equity orders seem to have been processed normally (at least for my portfolios they have - let me know if you're seeing differently), but all currency trades from yesterday have slipped down the CNBC memory hole. This morning, currency trading thus far remains unavailable:

Due to technical difficulties related to currency trading, we have cancelled [sic] all currency transactions submitted throughout Monday, May 12th and currency trading is currently unavailable. All traders' currency allocations will be reset to $100,000 CNBC Bucks until currency trading resumes.

Which suits me fine. I wasn't in love with this addition to the game in the first place. Last year saw sufficient technical difficulties that it would have been an achievement just to debug the existing format. In any event, this can't be the kind of exposure CNBC's currency trading platform provider FXCM was intending when they partnered up.

As for the comparatively stable equity trading end of things, if you're logging into your account and noticing your positions haven't budged, that's normal. Yesterday was the first day of trading, but that means the first trades were processed at yesterday's trading bell. Those initial allocations will re-price for the first time at today's closing bell, at which point you should see your first move up or down (excluding the effect of your bonus bucks ). You'll notice the top-ranked players are all tied at $1,017,000 = the initial allocation + $5,000 in refer-a-friend bonuses + $12,000 for yesterday's Bonus Bucks.

For you volatility hounds, below is the list of eligible stocks reporting earnings either after today's close or before tomorrow's opening bell (i.e. stocks you can trade today before 4 pm and get exposure to during tomorrow's session).

Symbol	Name
CVLT	CommVault
WFMI	Whole Foods Market
CGV	CGGVeritas
AMAT	Applied Materials
DE	Deere & Company

Yesterday's volatility picks are shaping up to be a mixed bag, but there appears to be one big winner - Canadian Solar (CSIQ), up 24% shortly after the open. The company blew out revenue and earnings estimates (EPS was $0.61 per share, compared to the consensus of $0.31).

Happily, I gave CSIQ the maximum 25% allocation in two of my portfolios, the better performing of which is up 6.6% intraday. So, Canadian Solar, let me be the first to say:

Applied Materials (from the above about-to-report-earnings list) might be an interesting pick for one of your portfolios, if Canadian Solar was any indication of how solar stocks fared this quarter. The whole sector isn't doing as well as CSIQ today, but overall it seems to be trending well. Analysts are expecting a down quarter from AMAT, but the company has a tendency to exceed analysts' expectations.

CommVault might also sate the volatility jones, as it's the smallest cap company on today's earnings list. With a market cap of less than $600 million, it's barely eligible for the contest. Analysts tend to peg its earnings on the nose, so there might not be as much opportunity for upside surprise, but the shares have pulled back decently in recent months, so there might be room for a jump.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Tuesday, May 13th

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: "CNBC.com Video: On May 5, analyst Elaine Kub discussed a possible commodity cartel. What commodity was it?

Answer: Rice

Squawk On the Street: "Market Insider blog: On May 9, what did John Kilduff say was his upside target for crude oil?"

Answer: $138

The Call: "Web Video: On May 5, strategist James Altucher said three stocks may be the "next Berkshire Hathaways." Name one of them."

Answer: Otter Tail

Power Lunch: "On May 9's "Stop Trading", Jim Cramer warned NOT to buy certain stocks. Which one did he call a "travesty"?"

Answer: AIG

Street Signs: "According to Rebecca Darst, what "slammed" the Pawn-and-Payday firms?"

Answer: Wham-bam legislation

Closing Bell: "How did Larry Kudlow's blog Bush Whiffs on the Dollar end? "

Answer: McCain, are you listening?

Handcrafted by Flip on May 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Obama Once Again Wearing Flag Pin, Star Count Unclear

Well, that didn't take long. Just 24 hours after the Obama-edition 57-star flag pins went on sale, the candidate himself is found sporting a patriotic lapel pin voluntarily for the first time in months.

It's hard to tell from the resolution of the photo, but I think it's safe to assume it's one of ours.

(HT: Hot Air)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Technical Difficulties, Orders Cancelled

I noted in this morning's post that among the Day 1 technical difficulties were stock orders that would suddenly disappear from portfolios. Based on an email that just arrived from the contest admins, this must be a somewhat common affliction, because they're asking everyone to double check all pending orders.

They've also noticed the horrendous non-performance of the currency trading section and have apparently given up on getting it fixed today. So if you sat around endlessly refreshing the page like a sucker (like me) until you were finally able to enter your currency trades, you've gone and wasted some time.

We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced today, Monday May 12th, while playing the CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge.

We encourage you to check your stock transaction history to ensure all stock transaction orders you have submitted are entered correctly.

In addition, because of technical difficulties related to currency trading, we have cancelled all currency transactions submitted throughout Monday, May 12th. All traders' currency allocations will be reset to $100,000 CNBC Bucks when currency trading resumes. Please check back at http://milliondollar.cnbc.com for updates.

Last year, it took a whole week for everything to fall apart. They're getting more efficient.

Previously:
CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 1
CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Kicking Off Monday

CNBC Portfolio Challenge Archive

Handcrafted by Flip on May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 1

Million Trading started today at 9:30 am (you can still sign up), though things are already a bit squirrelly. Accessing the portfolio manager page sometimes returns an error screen (though that problem seems to be less frequent if you're using Internet Explorer rather than Firefox) and clicking on one of the portfolios returns a "portfolio not found" error. Also, the first round of trivia questions was supposed to be posted at 6:00 am, but is thus far unavailable. [Update: problems solved (mostly) and trivia questions added, see below.]

I've put in a support request to the contest admins. Hopefully this is just first day gremlins, but given the way last year's contest quickly descended into mayhem with the multiple account debacle, we're off to an inauspicious start.

While we're waiting, let's strategerize. (Consider all of the following for entertainment purposes and not meant to be used as real-world investment recommendations.)

I mentioned last week that this year's contest has remedied some of the issues that tended to encourage moon-shooting strategies last year. Specifically, they no longer allow multiple account creation (beyond the 5 portfolios available to a single player) and they've eliminated the "finals round" which allowed each weekly winner to compete against the overall high scorers (meaning there was little incentive to avoid massive downside during any given week). A good strategy last year was simply to allocate 100% of the portfolio into a single name where you could expect high volatility (i.e. a company that would report earnings the next day).

Volatility for volatility's sake is a riskier way to play it this year, but still perhaps an interesting strategy. After all, there's still something to be said for shooting the moon when the prize structure is still a Ricky Bobby style "if you're not first, your last." In fact, you can be up to 6th in overall performance and still share in the million dollars, but given the large number of players (roughly 600,000 portfolios already registered), you'll still need a blowout performance. Plus, there are still some valuable weekly prizes, so volatility is still your friend this year. That said, the game limits your allocation to any single stock at 25% of your portfolio value, so it's harder to do well with a single good guess.

And remember your portfolio has to be worth at least $250,000 to be eligible for any weekly prize, so if you lose more than 75% of your initial allocation, you're in the penalty box until you recover above that threshold.

If you do elect to play the volatility strategy, you've got several options today. The following companies all report earnings either after today's closing bell or before tomorrow's opening bell. So any position taken today before 4:00 pm will process at today's close and see its first market exposure tomorrow (Tuesday).

Symbol	Name
DRL	Doral Financial
WNR	Western Refining, Inc.
HIT	Hitachi Limited
NSANY	Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.
STO	StatoilHydro ASA
CCJ	Cameco
CSIQ	Canadian Solar Inc.
TJX	The TJX Companies, Inc.
GU	~~Gushan Environmental Energy, Ltd.~~
REP	Repsol YPF

That timing issue is one that warrants a little closer attention, since it'll be important throughout the contest. Whenever you enter a trade, it gets processed at the next closing bell. So if you enter a trade at 11 am on Monday, it'll process at 4 pm Monday, so the first day of exposure you get is Tuesday. If you enter a trade after 4 pm on Monday, it'll process at 4 pm on Tuesday, and the first day your position can move is Wednesday.

That 1-2 day lag in the actual price change is a little nonintuitive. It also means each weekly marking period (as used to determine the winner of the weekly prizes) is based on the trades you enter between Friday at 4 pm and Thursday at 4 pm (rather than Monday-Friday, as would seem logical).

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.

Update: The system now seems to be working. Trade away!

Update: I take it back - the system is not precisely "working" in the strictest sense of the word. You can enter trades and they seem to go through, but they seem prone to blinking out of existence without warning, forcing you to re-enter your orders. This doesn't bode well.

For what it's worth, the currency trading section seems to be more stable. Sadly, I'm afraid you're not going to find any worthwhile currency trading advice here. I'm just taking the maximum short position in EUR/USD (betting on the dollar strengthening versus the euro) and letting it ride for the next 10 weeks.

Update: Scratch Gushan Envrionmental (GU). It should be eligible (NYSE-listed, market cap >$500 million, average volume >10,000/day), but it's not. It's the ADS of a foreign company, but so are others on the above list, so I'm not sure why it's ineligible.

Also, if you're having trouble with the currency trading (specifically, it takes several minutes to load your portfolio or you get the error "Service is unavailable now. Please try again later."), you're not alone.

Update: A reply from CNBC Customer Care regarding the various site problems:

Due to overwhelming interest some users may not have been able to access the Contest this morning. We are aware of the page errors on portfolio challenge and are actively working to fix. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

If these problems persist, it ought to take care of that "overwhelming interest" problem in a hurry.

Monday, May 12th

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 On the Street: "In his Trader Talk blog, Bob Pisani had one April entry entitled Hot Fertilizer. Name one of the stocks he discussed."

Answer: CF Industries

The Call: "On Monday, April 28, James Altucher of Formula Capital recommended which food-inflation trade to CNBC viewers?"

Answer: Sadia

Power Lunch: "On April 25, Tech Check's Jim Goldman blogged on Microsofts Yahoo bid. How did he describe Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmers rule?"

Answer: Iron-fisted

Street Signs: "Mark Travis said he likes "redneck stocks." On April 24, The CIO of Intrepid Capital Funds recommended:"

Answer: Comcast

Closing Bell: "Jim Cramer has a cameo in Iron Man, judging the mythical Stark Industries. What is Stark's make-believe ticker symbol?"

Answer: SIA

Weekly Bonus Quiz:

Question: An MACD crossover reading above ____ indicates upward momentum.

Answer: 0

Handcrafted by Flip on May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Battle Of the Proxy Incumbents

Having long struggled to find a stump message more specific than Hope and less nebulous than Change, nominee apparent Barack Obama seems to have finally found a unifying theme for his campaign, as he sets his sites on the general election.

In case your cable's been out for a couple weeks, the grand, unifying, post-partisan argument in favor of electing this New Kind of Politician is that John McCain, the "Maverick", the Gang of 14er, the pathologically centrist aisle-crosser and frequent thorn in his own party's side, represents George Bush's third term.

Fiction can be fun! Ultimately though, this fanciful bit of twaddle is unlikely to stick, what with McCain's voting record so thoroughly refuting it. And in a lot of ways, that's too bad. If only we could look back at McCain's votes and comments on the wildly effective investment income tax cuts and find a man who embraced pro-growth fiscal policy as eagerly as Bush, we might be better assured of the continuity of certain beneficial policies that Obama so laments.

Still, Barack assures us that John McCain's and George Bush's policy stances are indistinguishable, so let's so stipulate. Is that worse than the alternative?

After all, what President in the modern era does Senator Obama's agenda most resemble?

Click for larger size.

Huge expansion of the federal government? Check. Letting entitlement spending run wild? Check. "Windfall profit" taxes on oil companies? Strong desire to meet with dictators and state terrorism sponsors? Big doofy grin? Check, check, and check.

Do political fashions run in 30-year cycles? If so, then get ready for the fabulous comeback of energy crises, stagflation, high unemployment, and national malaise.

(Obama caricature by Cox & Forkum)

Handcrafted by Flip on May 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Obama Campaign Introduces Customized Lapel Pins

Update: Due to overwhelming demand, we have taken the Obama lapel pins from concept phase to the real-world, buyable phase. Get yours for only $2.49 (cheap!).

It's the perfect accessory for the ironic Obama supporter, and a wonderful "substitute for true patriotism"!

In celebration of his having traveled to an impressive 57 states in his bid for the Presidency (and to finally put to rest the notion that he abhors patriotic accessories), Barack Obama's campaign has introduced a custom line of American flag lapel pins.

Get yours today and show your support for the least senile candidate in the race!

Let's all give a warm, manifestly destined welcome to what I assume are our 7 newest states:

51. Puerto Rico
52. Guam
53. Northern Mariana
54. American Samoa
55. St. Croix
56. St. Thomas
57. St. John

I guess we should've seen this coming when Obama was reported to be meeting unofficially with the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands when he took his family on "vacation" to St. Thomas.

(HT: Hot Air)

Update: It's just been announced that two superdelegates from the Virgin Islands have pledged support for Obama, giving him his first-ever superdelegate lead over Clinton. Interesting timing, no?

You scratch my back, I grant you statehood.

Handcrafted by Flip on May 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (60) | TrackBack

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Categories

Obama's Surprise Fact-Finding Mission

Howard Dean: Magnanimous and Petty, With a Side of Bonkers

Entering the Silly Season Post-Season: Geraldine Ferraro For McCain's VP

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 3

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 3

GDPick'em - The Results Show

Extracontinental Dark Horse Enters the GOP Veepstakes

GDPick'em

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 3

Fidel Castro Makes His Presidential Endorsement

Pipe Dreams From My Uncle

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 3

Defiant Hillary Argues Nomination Still In Doubt, Citing Case of Sirhan v. Kennedy

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 2

Either It's a Bubble... Or We're All Immediately Screwed

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 2

"Kids, You Noticing All This plight?"

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - A New Fly In the Ointment

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 2

Obama's Passes

Evel Caninevel

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Currency Trading Resumes Wed. 5/21

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 2

Professor Obama Rhetorically Exterminates 100 Million Americans

"Why You're Wrong About the Right"

Over .000001 Billion Served

I Can't Believe It's Not Ipecac!

Another Sutbbornly Non-Recessionary Data Point

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 2

McCain On SNL

Now Is zee Time In zee Campaign Vhen Ve Dance

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - More Technical Difficulties

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Prize Poll

Ire In the Sky

U.N.: World Teeters On Brink Of Ruin

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Friday, Week 1

Fire In the Sky

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Thursday, Week 1

The Lumbering Delicacy: Tasty Polar Bear Recipes

Battle Of the Proxy Incumbents, Revisited

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - The Airing Of Grievances

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Wednesday, Week 1

Media Prima Donnas Gone Wild

With Deepest Condolences To the AP Economics Desk

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 1

Obama Once Again Wearing Flag Pin, Star Count Unclear

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Technical Difficulties, Orders Cancelled

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Monday, Week 1

Battle Of the Proxy Incumbents

Obama Campaign Introduces Customized Lapel Pins