Mary Sue Williams, waitress and former welder from St. Clairsville, Ohio, is the winner of the Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge, CNBC announced Friday. Williams, who has never owned a stock, was placed sixth overall in the last ranking, but prevailed after disqualifications resulting from verboten after-hours trading and manipulation of real stock prices for simulated portfolios. She will receive $100,000 upfront and $36,000 per year for 25 years, the Associated Press Reports.
Williams, 46, says she looked for stocks of companies with low debt levels and picked one stock a day to buy.
Posted by inIT4the$ , Jul 16, 2007 3:03PM
This CNBC game is the dumbest thing ever. It's like economics: no real world applications.
Posted by Zbignew , Jul 16, 2007 3:14PM
Any word on her plans to start a hedge fund?
Posted by jt , Jul 16, 2007 3:14PM
Why don't they do a serious stock-market (and/or any other asset market) game. Pick out like a 3-year time horizon for the game, winner gets seeded with $ for their own hedge fund. "Cheating" er i mean "bending the rules" is allowed (as it is in real life), but if caught the individual would be forced to pay a fine (without admitting or denying wrongdoing, of course) if they wanted to continue, albeit under further scrutiny.
Posted by vespa , Jul 16, 2007 3:28PM
Am I the only one who thinks this is pretty great. She used some pretty logical ideas on how she picked her stocks, and didn't look to hit any home runs, just smart investing. The fact that people 1-5 all tried to cheat the system is kind of sad - it's a game...on cnbc.
Now those guys have no chance with Erin Burnett as well, scukers
Posted by vespa , Jul 16, 2007 3:28PM
Am I the only one who thinks this is pretty great. She used some pretty logical ideas on how she picked her stocks, and didn't look to hit any home runs, just smart investing. The fact that people 1-5 all tried to cheat the system is kind of sad - it's a game...on cnbc.
Now those guys have no chance with Erin Burnett as well, suckers
Posted by MickeyMouse , Jul 16, 2007 3:55PM
My advice to CNBC is get out of contests period. The Challenge was a painful, loose ended, completely undefined and no one gave a damn about the many mecanical complaints. Not even the FTC federal trade commission whom I called and left a complaint with an guess what?......nothing. Give it up CNBC
Posted by anon , Jul 16, 2007 6:32PM
I think it is pretty awesome as well.