The Winners of the First Stock Contest are….

… “kl” with the short pick Petrochina (PTR), “jimmy303” with his long pick HDFC Bank (HDB) and “gdeese” with his short pick iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund (FXI). All three of them will receive a personally signed copy of Vitaliy’s book Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets. In a sign of the times, two out of the three top picks were short positions and both were based on bets that Chinese stocks would head lower. Two Indian banks HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank (IBN) were also amongst the top 4 picks with double digit returns. The top winner “kl” had good company with his/her short pick Petrochina as Warren Buffett recently sold his entire stake in the company.

Just 10 out of the 44 picks managed to post a gain over the one month period the contest lasted. After spending a couple of days at the bottom of the pile (a very humbling experience), my pick Gymboree (GYMB) recovered enough to help me finish at position 21 with a 7.04% loss. It was interesting to read the reasons provided by some subscribers for picking their stocks and to watch how the top positions kept changing throughout the month.

I want to thank all the subscribers who decided to participate in the first stock contest One Stock, One Month, Three Prizes and for the feedback I received on the blog and through emails. Hopefully we will be able to launch another longer contest in 2008 with some interesting prizes.