Two Contests, Three Months, Four Prizes

Encouraged by the response to our first stock contest One Stock, One Month, Three Prizes, we have decided to launch two new stock contests simultaneously starting on January 1st, 2008 and ending on March 31st, 2008. The first of the two contests is an invitation only contest for the top 100 financial/business bloggers and the second one is a contest for InsideArbitrage subscribers.

The Contest:

Based on the feedback from the first contest, we decided to expand both the time and scope of these contests. Both contests run through the end of the first quarter of 2008 and you get to pick three stocks and the value of the S&P 500 as of March 31st, 2008. The value of the S&P 500 will simply be used a tie breaker in case two or more people have the same average gain by the end of the contest. We are giving away two prizes for each contest. You can join anytime between now and March 30th and in case you have been invited to the top bloggers contest or are already a InsideArbitrage subscriber you do not even have to login to participate. Just like the first contest, we decided to make things interesting by allowing participants to pick either long or short positions.

You can check out how you are doing from the stock contest rankings page given at the end of this blog post. The contest rankings page would be automatically updated during market hours just like our model portfolio.

The Prizes:

The first prize for both contests is a Nintendo Wii or a $250 Amazon.com gift card. The second prize is a Canon 7.1 MP Digital Elph Camera or a $150 Amazon.com gift card.

First Prize	(or)	$250 Amazon.com Gift Card
Second Prize	(or)	$150 Amazon.com Gift Card

The Rules:

The three primary rules are,

1. Only stocks that trade above $1 at the time of selection and that are listed either on the NYSE, Nasdaq or the American Stock Exchange will be accepted (sorry no pink sheet or bulletin board stocks at this time).
2. Regular dividend payments will not be taken into account both on the long side and the short side.
3. The stock contest price would be the highest price of the day for long stocks and lowest price of the day for short stocks if you pick the stock during a trading session. If you pick a stock after hours or over a weekend, the next trading session will be used to determine the highest price of the day for long stocks and lowest price of the day for short stocks. While this puts contestants at a slight disadvantage, it also helps stop people from gaming the contest.

Don’t forget to read the full list of rules and happy stock picking.

Click here to enter the subscriber contest.

Click here to view current rankings for subscribers.

Click here to view current rankings for the top financial bloggers.

Note: Due to time constraints (these stock contests took a while to put together), the January edition of InsideArbitrage will be delayed until this weekend.