Hey folks. We've got a few email questions and comments that came in yesterday that may be beneficial for all of us to read. Here they are--with some answers.
Charles wrote:
Since the weekly winner is determined not by portfolio size but rather by percent increase in portfolio the leader board should be based on this as well... Or at least have a second leader board that reflects the portfolios with the top gains for that week. That way, should I have a couple of serious gains early in the week, I can decide to sit on it rather than risk the gains by continuing to invest... especially in the kind of market we've seen for these first couple of weeks of the contest.
Thanks!
Charles
Thank you Charles. The plan is to have a weekly standing board up on the site early next week. Please look for it then.
David writes:
Just read the blog about contest Scott Synn made a trade on fremont general at 5.89. fremont has 77.84 million shares outstanding according to msn money so 5.89x77.84=458.47 million well below the 500 million market cap according to your contest rules the stock would have to have been at6.42 to be worth 500 million cap .can you explain this it seems a lot of your contestants have traded in this stock I can't understand how.
Thanks for your email David. Our crack statistician on the contest,Gina, provided the answer. The $500M market cap filter that established the stocks eligible for the contest was run on Friday, March 2nd, after the 4 pm close, per the rules. On March 2nd, FMT closed at $8.71 and had 77,875,000 outstanding shares, putting the market cap at $678,291,250, above our $500M requirement.
Harry wrote:
On your Rule Clarification, you refered to "irrespective of the number of portfolios entered". I have not found the add another portfolio in My Portfolio, so I can only assume that to get another portfolio I need to register again? The woman that won had at least 8 that I saw in the first contest. Is there a limit to how many times you can register?
I was in the top 5% for a little while with just one portfolio. That was the first I heard that you could have more that one. But then maybe I was higher than that, if she had that many chances. This could get kind of confusing if every one had a hundred a piece. It does not seem fair in that respect, but she did had over an 80% return on her money.
Maybe I should have her pick my stocks for real. Thanks for the chance to play with stocks for fun. It has been exciting!
Sincerly,
Harry Lawson
Thanks Harry. Yes, you would need to register again for more portfolios and you can register as often as you like.
Thomas H. in Houston wrote on a related issue:
I can only hope that for the finals you will allow ONLY ONE portfolio per contestant. Otherwise it will not be about stock picking, but how many permutations a person can cover. You really have made a PR nightmare for yourselves with this one. I can't be too mad at that person for exploiting the rules, but I am sure you are aware of how badly CNBC's image has been tarnished over this.
Thomas, we can only hope you will continue with the contest. As for the finals, you are right--contestants will be allowed ONLY ONE portfolio each in the competition.
Another Tom, this one from New York wrote:
Your Blog failed to mention that your other guest, James Altucher also made a recommendation on the show of LEND . The stock was down from Mondays close of 11.40 to Tuesdays close of 3.97, probably one of the largest daily % losers since the contest began. I still liked the show though and JAS was a good pick.
Toms referring to a post that dealt with Jeff Mishlove's stock picks. Jeff was a guest on last Friday's "On The Money" program--along with James Altucher. Seems Jeff had one of the better picks that night.
We want to hear from you. Send your comments to millions@cnbc.com. For specific contest comments dealing with issues like technical questions or registration problems, please contact customercare@support.cnbc.com.
