Stock market contest, June 1 update

Jun 01

kosmoAssorted , 2 Comments

Back On April 15, we  launched  a Stock Market contest (click link to see insights from the participants) in which a team of Goliaths (personal finance bloggers) were matched up against a team of Davids (people who were not personal finance bloggers).  At long last, we unveil the first monthly update.

At the end of the day on April 14th (the 104th day of the year), the Dow was at 7920.18.

At the end of the day on May 31 (the 151st day of the day), the Dow was at 8500.33

This is a gain of 580.15, or 12.34 points per day.  If we assume that the market will contain to gain at exactly the same rate throughout the rest of the year (yes, a ridiculous assumption), the Dow will be at 11,140.92 at the end of the year.

How do our contestants stack up?

Team Player Player’s Guess Difference from projection
N/A Projected year end Dow 11140.92 0
David Peter Rabbit 9500 1640.92
No Team Kosmo @ The Soap Boxers 8999 2141.92
David Phil Ossifer @ The Soap Boxers 8500 2640.92
Goliath Trevor @ Financial Nut 8500 2640.92
David Black Hole 8492.48 2648.44
Goliath Heidi @ Banker Girl 8400 2740.92
Goliath Lazy @ Lazy Man and Money 8232 2908.92

I also invited visitors to play along at home.  Let’s see how they are doing.

Player Player’s Guess Difference from projection
Karchy 9777 1363.92
Hilary 9500 1640.92
Jeff 7800 3340.92

Visitor Mike missed the  April 30 cutoff, but submitted a guess of 11,600 – a projected difference of just 459.08.

At this point, team Goliath seems to be off to a strong starts as the Dow has been fairly strong over the last 6 weeks.  There are still 7 long months ahead of us before the end of the year – a lot can change!  Check back each month for an update.

2 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. kosmo
    Jun 01, 2009 @ 09:45:25

    Note:
    GM and Citigroup are being dropped from the Dow and replaced by Cisco and Travelers. Travelers had previously been a member of the Dow before being acquired by Citigroup in 1998 (Citigroup spun off Travelers in 2002).

    GM was dropped because their bankruptcy filing made them ineligible for inclusion. Citigroup is not technically ineligible, but was dropped as it gets its house in order. It would be elgible for inclusion at a later date.

    Due to the way the Dow is calculated, the swap shouldn’t cause a weird change in the DJIA when changes take effect on June 8. Going forward, though, it seems that this might have a bullish effect on the Dow in the medium to long term. However, I am far from an expert on this.

    Reply

  2. Jeff
    Jun 01, 2009 @ 10:19:03

    Love it! I’m excited to see how this turns out. Thanks for putting this together and sending the update.

    Reply

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