RSSStock Market Contest, End of July
August 1, 2009
kosmo - See all 763 of my articles
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 the end of June, the Dow stood at 8447.00 and had gained average 6.84 points during the course of the contest, making the Davids the favorites.
The market had a very strong July, and ended the month at 9171.61, up 724.61 for the month.
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 July 31 (the 212th day of the day), the Dow was at 9171.61.
This is a gain of 1251.43, or 11.59 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 10945.17 at the end of the year (+ 3024.99 from April 14).
How do our contestants stack up?
| Team | Player | Player’s Guess | Difference from projection |
| N/A | Projected year end Dow | 10945.17 | 0 |
| David | Peter Rabbit @ The Soap Boxers | 9500 | 1445.17 |
| No team | Kosmo @ The Soap Boxers | 8999 | 1946.17 |
| David | Phil Ossifer @ The Soap Boxers | 8500 | 2445.17 |
| Goliath | Trevor @ Financial Nut | 8500 | 2445.17 |
| David | Black Hole | 8492.48 | 2452.69 |
| Goliath | Heidi @ Banker Girl | 8400 | 2545.17 |
| Goliath | Lazy @ Lazy Man and Money | 8232 | 2713.17 |
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 | 1168.17 |
| Hilary | 9500 | 1445.17 |
| Jeff | 7800 | 3145.17 |
At this point, team David is strongly in the lead. What sort of month will August be? I think it will be a strong one, as “cash for clunkers” cash makes it way into the system (and more importantly, the public perceives cash for clunkers as the government giving back to “main street”). If this happens, team David could pull away even further. However, there are certainly a lot of ups and downs yet to be experienced this year!