Congratulations to Edward Burke of Shippensburg, PA.  He is the $500,000 Grand Prize winner in the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge.  Congratulations also to First Prize winner David Lesser of Kent, WA who will take home $250,000.  They were both in the CNBC studios and you can see the tension filled video of the final announcement.

The Challenge really came down to the wire. The top four traders kept on trading right up to the closing bell, playing all four quarters, as it were, to make sure that any challengers wouldn’t catch them taking a break.

To show the world that they wanted to have fun as much as they wanted to win, they traded the two stocks that had the potential to take them to the bottom of the list: FNM and FRE.  Those stocks had to have been the contrarian trades of the year. They got crushed in the last week of the contest but rallied back in the final couple of days. The contest winners went for broke and bought pretty close to what turned out to be the lows. Hey, it’s only CNBC Bucks, so why not? But it’s all about timing. Luckily, the government stepped in before the contest ended and resurrected FNM and FRE. Remember SIRI, the undisputed most popular stock of the contest?  The FCC approved its merger with XMSR this past weekend. SIRI is a day late (kind of) and a dollar short (really) for all of you who patiently held that stock since day 1 of the contest.

And while many contestants did well scalping volatile stocks, the last week of currency trading is what propelled our Grand Prize winner.  While a strong performer in stock trading, Edward Burke blew the doors off everybody else with his extremely active currency trading skills in the EUR/USD. There were some pretty wide daily swings in the euro, and he capitalized on most of them. Other contest winners traded currencies as well, but with more modest results.  You can see the video with more about Edward Burke's story and his trading strategy here.

Congratulations also go out to the other four winners who finished in the money with Second Place winner David Price of Columbus, OH winning $100,000 and Third Place winners Andrew Krussell of Grand Rapids, MI, Bradford Pine of Westbury, NY, and Jeffrey Elwyn of Kingston, NY each winning $50,000.  Thanks to everyone who participated and don’t forget to check the Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge contest site later today for the updated leader board with all the top players and the final amounts in their portfolios.

Tom Preston, thinkorswim, Inc.

thinkorswim, Inc. and its registered employee, Tom Preston, do not solicit or recommend any form of trading in the individual stocks (or their derivatives) mentioned above.  Please do careful, independent research before investing any money as well as weigh the possible consequences on your particular financial situation before doing so.  The risk of loss may be substantial.

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