CNBC’s 2008 Portfolio Challenge: My Results

I didn’t win. Which is no big surprise. But I didn’t even know I didn’t win until I happened to check my Spam folder and see a bunch of emails from the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge.

Oops. Imagine if I had actually won. I might have missed the email!

Let’s see how poorly I did. I’m almost embarrassed to publish these. Gulp.

Portfolio 1: Entertainment

Symbol % Gain
MVL -2.43%
DWA 1.72%
ERTS -15.15%
ATVID 13.33%
Total -2.52%

Portfolio 2: Energy

Symbol % Gain
VQ -8.82%
PXP -16.09%
BRY -20.55%
BP -15.34%
Total -60.81%

Portfolio 3: Discount Shopping

Symbol % Gain
NDN -32.60%
DLTR 0.14%
FDO 1.63%
ROST 1.17%
Total -29.65%

Portfolio 4: Technology

Symbol % Gain
CLWR -26.04%
GIGM -29.31%
COMS -27.84%
YHOO -20.35%
Total -103.54%

Portfolio 5: First Week’s Top Market Movers

Symbol % Gain
VQ -8.82%
APKT -54.25%
PSS -3.98%
ICOG -4.85%
Total -71.90%

Oh my. My my my. That’s a lot of red. That’s just… abysmal. I didn’t do so badly last year, but sure as hell stunk like a rotting goose egg locked in a stuffy car during the summer this year, didn’t I? This is why I’m in Silicon Valley and not Wall Street.

Author: Mike Lee

An idealistic realist, humanistic technologist & constant student.

5 thoughts on “CNBC’s 2008 Portfolio Challenge: My Results”

  1. The interesting thing is that in an RSS reader, all percentages are the same color. For a moment, I thought you had done great! Then I realized you said “red” and thought something was amiss, so I clicked through. Perhaps a minus next to the percentages would help clear things up?

    Anyways, stay away from my investment money. :)

  2. Dude you suck! I hope you didn’t put any real money on these companies! ;-)

    I shouldn’t talk though. My own real world portfolio is doing just as bad.

  3. mike, your totals aren’t calculated right, so you didn’t do as bad as you show above. example, if you put 250 bucks into each of the first four stocks, then you would have lost a total of 6 bucks, so your return would be -0.6%, not -2.52%. for portfolio 2 it would be -15.2%, not -60.81%.

  4. Oh, you’re right! Whew, that’s a load off my mind. I’ll take not-as-bad over abysmally-bad any day. Thanks for correcting my math, Jason!

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