Apr 20 2007

CNBC Million Dollar Challenge

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I’m an avid day-trader/swing-trader depending on my mood. Sometimes I won’t trade at all. One thing I look forward to is stock-trading contests. CNBC has one each year – “Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge“. With the recent resurgance in day-trading, the contest has proven more popular than ever. Yours truly is no exception.

I checked my status today and it has bumped up quite a bit in the rankings. I don’t trade this portfolio as regularly as my real-life portfolio. My real-life portfolio hurts me when it is neglected so you can understand my attachment.

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in the top 3% amongst almost a million contestants. That makes me feel good, but not great. 2 more percentage points to go.

You play the market starting with $1,000,000 CNBC Bucks. Every day you are ranked based on the size of your portfolio. Each week the individual with the largest weekly percentage gain receives $10,000. At the end of ten weeks, the weekly winners, plus the ten highest ranked players will qualify for THE FINALS. In THE FINALS the qualifiers start over with $1,000,000 in CNBC bucks and have 2 weeks to trade. At the end whomever has the largest portfolio wins a cool $1,000,000. Below is a screenshot of of my status in the contest so far as of 4/20/2007.

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4 Comments on this post

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  1. Today’s Stock Trade » Dax Desai.com wrote:

    [...] CNBC Million Dollar Challenge [...]

    April 24th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
  1. john anthony said:

    Wow, you’re doing awesome with that much cash on hand! I was up there too a couple weeks ago and just checked back and am ranked 94,325 (top 9%). It’s a fun little contest to participate in, but my only gripe is that it’s not as realistic as I’d like it to be. They have no regulations besides the $500MM minimum market cap. The only way to win this thing really is by investing it all in 1 stock… and it has to be a big mover – so either a small biotech or maybe by playing the earnings game and piling in the night before earnings.

    Either way, great job so far!

    April 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 am
  2. Dax Desai said:

    I agree with your complaints whole-heartedly!

    I usually stick to my normal trading style however and pick stocks accordingly for the challenge. That’s probably why I’m not in the top 1%!!! I don’t bet on hit-or-miss in my personal portfolio and don’t want to taint my trading style by “practicing” in a contest too aggressively.

    Remember… If you lose 50%, you have to go up 100% just to break even. Preservation of capital is everything!

    Recent Trades:

    (IBN) ICICI Bank [6.7% gain in 4 trading sessions]
    4/19/07 – Bought @ $42.37
    4/24/07 – Sold @ $45.21

    (GS) Goldman Sachs
    4/24/07 – Bought @ 221.80
    OPEN – Sold @ OPEN POSITION

    I had 2 more trades, but then what would I put in my newsletter?! Stay tuned and sign up to get more trades. I put my down trades too so you can make an honest judgement of my stock trades and ideas. I will also have other alternative investment ideas.

    April 24th, 2007 at 7:37 am
  3. Dax Desai said:

    Tomorrow should be good once it recalculates performance. I had a good trade with Goldman Sachs (both in my real portfolio and the CNBC challenge).

    I think I’m going to hit top 2% tomorrow.

    Million Dollar Challenge & selling my Apple options tomorrow. Can’t wait!

    April 25th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

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