CNBC's 2018 Stock Draft begins Thursday on "Power Lunch," with a set of new challengers looking to overtake reigning champion Kevin O'Leary.
The eight top teams will make one pick per round for three rounds, choosing from a predetermined list of 60 investments, including big Dow Jones industrial companies like 3M and Boeing, the tech heavyweights like Facebook and Amazon, as well as bitcoin, oil, and gold.
Beaten down stocks like General Electric and JC Penney, and new faces like Spotify and Dropbox, are also up for grabs.
The draft kicks off at 2 p.m. ET on CNBC; while the first two rounds will be televised, the final round will be available via live-stream at 3 p.m. ET on CNBC.com, Facebook, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV.
The four returning players – including O'Leary, Todd Gordon, The Beardstown Ladies and Tim Seymour – will be put to the test against four new competitors – Skinnygirl Cocktails founder Bethenny Frankel, former NFL players Eric Dickerson and Nick Lowery, and The Stevens Institute Investment Club.
A winner will be chosen based on the performance of each team's three stock draft choices (not including dividends) from the closing price on Apr. 26, 2018, through the 2019 Super Bowl on Feb. 3, 2019.
O'Leary's team, "Mr. Wonderful," took down seven others last year, riding his second-round pick Boeing for a 90 percent climb.
He beat Todd Gordon, who was up 43 percent with Tesla and Netflix and the Beardstown Ladies, who returned 42 percent thanks to Amazon and Facebook.
Tim Seymour held the lead for a long time, but risky bets on Valeant and Mattel backfired in the final two weeks.
Here is the draft order, chosen randomly earlier this week:
- Stevens Institute Investment Club
- Todd Gordon
- Kevin O'Leary
- The Beardstown Ladies
- Eric Dickerson
- Tim Seymour
- Nick Lowery
- Bethenny Frankel
— CNBC's Tae Kim contributed to this report.