That all the on-air personalities at CNBC kick in a stock pick from there area of coverage…so for example Mike Huckman may contribute a Pharma stock; to help out the contestants,It seems that even the general reporters on the show are contributing their prognostications!.Does this make you uncomfortable?I think it makes them uncomfortable.They are reporters not stock traders ; as Cramer says just being”Team Players”.Some of there ideas I have heard I can guarantee are not going to do you any good.One recomendation was SIRI .In the record books as the most reviewed merger of two [now]penny stocks.Why won’t this stock work?In the first place you need large point moves and /or a lot of them to win.Even if SIRI doubled it probably wouldn’t help you because there are too many contestants playing the same hand[CNBC mentions on air ;the most held stocks by contestants;a contrarian indicator?].The fellow who is banking a 30% profit 5 days a week will be ahead of you after 4 days of lucky trades.Buy and holding a stock that doubles won’t win this contest!..unless you do it often.Another idea I heard today from Diane the real estate reporter was to buy,well ;real estate stocks.That is a better idea as these heavily shorted stocks could make a massive move up.But again; when?They have been stuck in a range for months,and unless a spark ignites them near term these will have the same problem as siri;they may very well be within 20% of the price they are now;a month from now.I guess even if you don’t do it in your regular investing you need to play risky “event” trades to win.2008-05-15

Many people [like me]wasted valuable time making ineffective trades due to not understanding a key point about the contest.It does seem like they are emphasizing it more this year but still it bears repeating.The TV ads say you can trade 7 days a week …. but how can you trade when the market is closed?.Well it does not matter because the way the contest is set up it is not really daytrading..meaning buying and selling stock repeatedly in a single day and at the end of the day tallying up your gains or losses..People who trade in the market for real will have to adjust there style since “DAYTRADING” CAN’T BE DONE.The stocks you purchase during any given day are priced as of the close of trading at 4 pm EST.So there is no reason to sell a security that is not at least a day old.This rule lends itself to traders who buy “event” stocks.For example today PCLN reported earnings.This stock has climbed a wall of worry from the single digits by continuously beating the earnings estimates and proving naysayers wrong.After reporting tonite the stock was up $20 from its closing price.So a excellent technique would have been to have bought that stock anytime today[thursday] and sell it anytime tomorrow when hopefully it would still be up the $20 that it was in the after hours session.Note that if the stock was trading at say 148$ at 1 pm tomorow[friday] and you entered a sell order you would not be credited at $148 if it closed at say 134$ at 4 pm EST[friday];your trade would go in the records for your contest entry at the closing price of 134$ even if the stock traded at $148 intraday when you pushed the sell button in the contest..So in our example PCLN closed today at $123.94.If tomorrow it closes at $134 you will be credited with $10.06 profit for each share you bought today[thursday] prior to 4 PM est and sold tomorrow[friday]prior to 4 PM est.It seems simple but make sure you understand the timeline of what price CNBC is using to value your trade!2008-05-08

Trading starts in four days..you may be able to sign up after trading begins but I think it is advantage to get in early so you will have more days to trade.Not all of your trades will be winners..but a good way to add to your imaginary bankroll is to refer friends to the contest or play the triva contest wich will get you a additional $12,000 to play with,this can help offset those less than stellar trades!.2008-05-08

The

CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge is a stock picking
contest which gives you $1,000,000 CNBC Bucks to create and manage a
fictional portfolio of NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX traded stocks.
Stocks may only be bought and sold. Short selling, margin buying,
and the trading of derivatives, options, bonds, mutual funds, exchange
traded funds or other securities is not allowed. Only stocks which
had a market capitalization of over $500 million dollars on March 2,
2007 are eligible for trading in the challenge. You can place up to 50
stock trades per day, but all stock trades will priced using the closing price
on the day the order is placed. The official rules of the
challenge can be viewed

here.

In addition to receiving $1,000,000 CNBC Bucks to start with, two daily
trivia questions about the stock market are posted on CNBC.com. If
you answer these two trivia questions correctly, your portfolio will be
credited with an additional $3,000 CNBC Bonus Bucks to use for future stock
purchases.
2008-04-29