Suitably Flip

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 1; Update: Bonus Bucks Busted; Update: Problem Solved(?)

For answers to the most recent Bonus Bucks trivia questions, click here.

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Update (7 am Tuesday):  The Bonus Bucks-motron seems to have been rebooted.  If you previously entered these correct answers and had them marked wrong, go back and try again.  You should be able to re-enter the answers below and they should be marked correct.  Please alert me if you find any differently.  (Note they've juggled the order of the questions since last night.  Click with care.)

I'm leaving the original discussion in the post and comments below for posterity, but you can now probably safely ignore the warnings.

Don't forget to bookmark this site for your daily trivia answers.

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Bonus Bucks for Tuesday, September 20 (the ones posted Monday night).  Read warnings below before submitting your answers...

1.  China's richest person is:

C.  A contruction machinery tycoon

2.  What is the fifth largest auto market of 2011?

D.  Germany

3.  What does CNBC's Jim Cramer think Tim Geithner is counting on when he says there's no chance of a Lehman-like collapse in Europe?
A.  Crony capitalism

Fair warning - while "A" is definitely the correct answer to the 3rd question (you can see the quote here  ), CNBC marked me wrong for it.  Let me know if anyone gets the same error (or discovers whichever wrong answer the buggy system is looking for).

Update:  More fair warning.  Commenters are noting that their answers to #1 and #2 are being marked incorrect as well.  I assure you - these are the correct answers, whether the system is behaving properly or not.

Here are sources, all from cnbc.com:

1. Construction Machinery Founder Is China's Richest Man
2. World's 10 Largest Auto Markets. #5: Germany
3. No European Lehman-like Collapse? Cramer said Geithner is counting on “crony capitalism.”

Sincere apologies to anyone who was hosed by the contest site's buggery after using my answers.  I'll email the admins and see if they can rectify (and make the necessary credits).  But if you haven't submitted your answers yet, you might want to wait and do it tomorrow (just make sure you do it before 4 pm), when the bug will hopefully have been resolved.

Stay tuned.

Also, now that the leaderboard is operational, we've got some useful data about the competition.  Using my best-performing portfolio as a benchmark (98.78% percentile, ranked #5,319), it would appear that there are roughly 436,000 active portfolios.  So there are at least 87,200 players - probably somewhat more, assuming a good number were too lazy to create all five portfolios.  This is a little surprising.  If memory serves (turns out I'm too lazy to check my own archives to find out), there were more like 750,000 active portfolios last time around.  And that was for a mere $500,000 grand prize.

Then again, I seem to recall the contestant count grew throughout the contest last time.  It may have been similarly sized at the outset.  But this year, there's no weekly winner's ticket to the post-season shot at the grand prize.  So it seems like the incentive to join the game already in progress is significantly reduced this year, given that it'd be difficult to catch up to the legions of tightly packed frontrunners without a full 10 weeks to play.  That would seem to translate into far fewer latecomers this time around (as lovely as those weekly vacation packages sound).

In short, for what it's worth, it appears the competition may be (modestly) less fierce (or at least less numerous) than last time.

Update:  From the comments - kudos to loyal reader Steven, leaping out of the gate in the 99.89% percentile, for 478th place.  Anyone in the house got him beat?

Since you're here, why not:

• Follow me on the Twitter.
• Or visit me at the office.

Previously:

9/19:   Monday, Week 1: Trading Begins!
8/23:  CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Eligible Stocks, Funds
8/21:  CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge (More Details)
8/20:  CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge (Kicks Off Sunday August 21)

Full Archive:  CNBC Portfolio Challenge 2011

Comments

CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Tuesday, Week 1; Update: Bonus Bucks Busted; Update: Problem Solved(?)

For answers to the most recent Bonus Bucks trivia questions, click here.

---

Update (7 am Tuesday):  The Bonus Bucks-motron seems to have been rebooted.  If you previously entered these correct answers and had them marked wrong, go back and try again.  You should be able to re-enter the answers below and they should be marked correct.  Please alert me if you find any differently.  (Note they've juggled the order of the questions since last night.  Click with care.)

I'm leaving the original discussion in the post and comments below for posterity, but you can now probably safely ignore the warnings.

Don't forget to bookmark this site for your daily trivia answers.

---

Bonus Bucks for Tuesday, September 20 (the ones posted Monday night).  Read warnings below before submitting your answers...

1.  China's richest person is:

C.  A contruction machinery tycoon

2.  What is the fifth largest auto market of 2011?

D.  Germany

3.  What does CNBC's Jim Cramer think Tim Geithner is counting on when he says there's no chance of a Lehman-like collapse in Europe?
A.  Crony capitalism

Fair warning - while "A" is definitely the correct answer to the 3rd question (you can see the quote here  ), CNBC marked me wrong for it.  Let me know if anyone gets the same error (or discovers whichever wrong answer the buggy system is looking for).

Update:  More fair warning.  Commenters are noting that their answers to #1 and #2 are being marked incorrect as well.  I assure you - these are the correct answers, whether the system is behaving properly or not.

Here are sources, all from cnbc.com:

1. Construction Machinery Founder Is China's Richest Man
2. World's 10 Largest Auto Markets. #5: Germany
3. No European Lehman-like Collapse? Cramer said Geithner is counting on “crony capitalism.”

Sincere apologies to anyone who was hosed by the contest site's buggery after using my answers.  I'll email the admins and see if they can rectify (and make the necessary credits).  But if you haven't submitted your answers yet, you might want to wait and do it tomorrow (just make sure you do it before 4 pm), when the bug will hopefully have been resolved.

Stay tuned.

Also, now that the leaderboard is operational, we've got some useful data about the competition.  Using my best-performing portfolio as a benchmark (98.78% percentile, ranked #5,319), it would appear that there are roughly 436,000 active portfolios.  So there are at least 87,200 players - probably somewhat more, assuming a good number were too lazy to create all five portfolios.  This is a little surprising.  If memory serves (turns out I'm too lazy to check my own archives to find out), there were more like 750,000 active portfolios last time around.  And that was for a mere $500,000 grand prize.

Then again, I seem to recall the contestant count grew throughout the contest last time.  It may have been similarly sized at the outset.  But this year, there's no weekly winner's ticket to the post-season shot at the grand prize.  So it seems like the incentive to join the game already in progress is significantly reduced this year, given that it'd be difficult to catch up to the legions of tightly packed frontrunners without a full 10 weeks to play.  That would seem to translate into far fewer latecomers this time around (as lovely as those weekly vacation packages sound).

In short, for what it's worth, it appears the competition may be (modestly) less fierce (or at least less numerous) than last time.

Update:  From the comments - kudos to loyal reader Steven, leaping out of the gate in the 99.89% percentile, for 478th place.  Anyone in the house got him beat?

Since you're here, why not:

• Follow me on the Twitter.
• Or visit me at the office.

Previously:

9/19:   Monday, Week 1: Trading Begins!
8/23:  CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - Eligible Stocks, Funds
8/21:  CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge (More Details)
8/20:  CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge (Kicks Off Sunday August 21)

Full Archive:  CNBC Portfolio Challenge 2011