RSSStock Market Contest Update
November 2, 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 August, the Dow stood at 9496.281 and had gained average 11.34 points during the course of the contest, making the Davids the favorites.
We skipped the update at the end of September. In the two months since the last update, the market pushed back above 10,000 before retreating to finish the end of October at 9712.73.
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 October 31 (the 304th day of the year), the Dow was at 9712.73
This is a gain of 1792.55, or 8.96 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 10258.74 at the end of the year (+ 2338.56 from April 14).
How do our contestants stack up?
| Team | Player | Player’s Guess | Difference from projection |
| N/A | Projected year end Dow | 10258.74 | 0 |
| David | Peter Rabbit @ The Soap Boxers | 9500 | 758.74 |
| No team | Kosmo @ The Soap Boxers | 8999 | 1259.74 |
| David | Phil Ossifer @ The Soap Boxers | 8500 | 1758.74 |
| Goliath | Trevor @ Financial Nut | 8500 | 1758.74 |
| David | Black Hole | 8492.48 | 1766.26 |
| Goliath | Heidi @ Banker Girl | 8400 | 1858.74 |
| Goliath | Lazy @ Lazy Man and Money | 8232 | 2026.74 |
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 | 481.74 |
| Hilary | 9500 | 758.74 |
| Jeff | 7800 | 2458.74 |
Team David remains firmly in the lead at this point. The rate of growth has slowed a bit, but the market is still trending upward. With two months remaning in the year, Team Goliath still had a shot, but we would need to see a significant downturn in the market in order to give them the win.