CNBC issued an update on the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge:
As CNBC first reported on May 30, CNBC was contacted by several contestants alleging unusual trading in violation of rules of the contest, which ended on May 25.
As CNBC said at the time, it immediately launched a thorough investigation of the contest and it is now focusing on three specific areas of concern.
CNBC is investigating whether one or more finalists wrote and executed computer program scripts to bypass the contest’s security measures.
Additionally, some contestants were able to change their trades after the markets closed at 4 pm ET, but before the trades were processed by CNBC. That way, a contestant could have executed trades after hours, and have the trades priced as of that day’s market close.
CNBC has retained two leading consultants in the information security industry to investigate these two computer programming related issues.
In addition, there have been allegations that one or more contestants may have engaged in illegal market manipulation to affect actual prices of stocks represented in their contest portfolios.
CNBC has engaged an independent securities expert to determine whether such activity took place.
As CNBC said previously, the rules state that CNBC has until July 8, 2007 to declare a winner. Although CNBC hopes to announce a winner before that date, it is more important to ensure the individual awarded the Grand Prize is in compliance with the rules.
Integrity is paramount to CNBC. It is taking all allegations of improprieties very seriously. CNBC will provide updates on the air and on CNBC.com as they become available.
CNBC is owned by General Electric.