And the Winner Is...

From DealBreaker

9:05. Normally we reserve liveblogging for really big events. The Treasury Secretary nomination. The Enron convictions. Maybe Eugene Plotkin's first day out on bail. So why are we liveblogging this silly CNBC stock trading contest? Because its Friday in the summer, and that's what summer Fridays are meant for.

9:11. So these kids made fake millions trading in make-believe portfolios. We're thinking that its got to be easier to make a bundle on a fake portfolio than a real one because you aren't putting your own money at risk. You can take more aggressive positions because at the end of the day if you lose it all, you were just playing with monopoly money.

9:14. An IM conversation.
Trader Ivan: So who do you think's winning the thing?
DealBreaker: No clue. I haven't been following this closely.
Trader Ivan: You are a fabulous financial reporter.
DealBreaker: Don't tell Elizabeth.
Trader Ivan: You know your theory on why its easier to make money in this than the real world is screwed, right?
DealBreaker: It's definitely easier to take risks with money you don't have. You still get to go home to your apartment and pay your rent even if you get wiped out.
Trader Ivan: Welcome to Goldman Sachs proprietary trading group.

9:16. "And the winner is..." up next! The graphics on CNBC are piled so high you can barely see the car.

9:20. Game on. The moment we've "all been waiting for." The finalists are Jeremy Reuter, bald giant white dude from Detriot, and Thomas Ko, Asian dude who looks like he might have cut his own hair.

9:21. Someone asks Ko if he's nervous and he's saying, "I just want to say I never expected to win..." He's giving his acceptance speech already. He hasn't won yet!

9:22. Or has he? The CNBC staff seems nervous. Ko has blown the whole thing. Do all the contestants know who won? It's "Insider Gaming." Material non-public information. A fix!

9:23. Both admit they wouldn't have traded with real money the way they traded in the game. Take that Trader Ivan! Pow!

9:24: Becky Quick gets to "do the honors." The winners name is under the license plate number. It's Thomas Ko! CNBC plays a "roadrunner" sound. There's a joke about him being "psychic" because he "predicted" he was going to win. Or, as we like to say, he already knew he had won.

9:25. He's thanking people! Ko is giving an Oscar award speech. He thanks CNBC, Maserati, a website called "the line dot com." Someone reminds him to thank his wife.

9:26. Ko's in the car. It starts! Kernen asks Ko what stocks he likes now. Ko: "Oh, I don't want to speculate." That's it. Ko's a player now.

2006 CNBC Champ / Thomas Ko / Biography

From MSN

Thomas Ko has been a successful trader ever since he began paper trading at an early age. He calls himself a student of the markets and a master of his own success.

Ko lives in the Silicon Valley and has been working for the past decade as an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) engineer for companies like LSI Logic and Broadcom. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from San Jose State University with a minor in computer science.

He’s a big fan of TheLion.com financial site as well as CNBC’s Squawk Box. The latter led him to enter Squawk’s recent Fantasy Portfolio Challenge, running a $1 million portfolio for about six weeks.

With bold moves, he raised the portfolio to $5 million, making him the top finisher out of 150,221 contestants. That won him the top prize, a 2006 limited edition Maserati GranSport -- and an invitation to MSN Money’s Strategy Lab.

The prize economy

By Bambi Francisco, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- In a world where people are expected to labor for nothing, prizes have become the currency of choice.

If you haven't noticed, as Web sites clamor for the audience to create content, prizes -- in the form of cash or bragging rights -- are simultaneously proliferating across the Web as incentives in exchange for free labor.

It seems the reason for the rise in such activity is that companies are desperately competing for eyeballs and audience participation, or to use the au courant term -- user-generated content.

It's not surprising. We live in a world of abundant and increasing choice. And as choice grows on this exponential curve -- thanks to the Internet -- the probability that a person becomes a devoted follower of one television show, one channel, one Web site, one magazine, one network, one cereal, one religion, one gender, one anything, declines immensely.

If you think that walking through a magazine and newspaper store is mind-boggling, look at the niche Internet and community sites exploding on the Web. There are currently 4,829 sites in this category as tracked by Hitwise. This compares to 3,274 two years ago, according to Hitwise's Bill Tancer.

Hence, the rise in prizes to keep an audience tuned in. For example, CNBC -- in an effort to save its shrinking audience base -- is running a "Million dollar portfolio challenge" competition and is offering $1 million to the winner.

But on the Web, the competitions aren't just about keeping the audience. They're a number of competitions designed to get an audience to create the content too.

Continue reading this story at MarketWatch

How to Win CNBC's Million-Dollar Challenge

By Bill Barker of The Motley Fool

Driving to work the other day, I was listening to CNBC on my satellite radio, and I heard (for what must be the 40th time this week) that CNBC is sponsoring its "Million-Dollar Portfolio Challenge."

I got to thinking, "Hey, what's the strategy for actually winning this thing, or placing second-best? How can I share the information with as many readers as possible, so that I increase my chances of winding up in some rich person's will?"

So here's the information that I think will help improve your chances of winning (cue the drumroll, pause for effect, and zoom into the face of Dr. Evil) ...

One MILLION dollars!

(Sort of.)

Continue reading this story at The Motley Fool

The Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

It's that time of the year again! CNBC's Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge kicks off on March 5th, 2007. If you haven't already, make sure that you sign up to play!