Mad Money Machine

by Paul Douglas Boyer

MadMoneyMachineCOM Investment Guru Challenge Starts Today

Today is the first day of trading in the 2nd quarter of 2006 and the MadMoneyMachineCOM Investment Guru Challenge is underway. It is never too late to sign up and play.

I have added a “benchmark” account in there called ETFPortfolio. It will hold the 9 ETFs that are in the Portfolio Smackdown. We can use it as a benchmark for comparing our performance. I intend to just buy and hold the ETFPortfolio through the duration of the challenge. I have set it up in the following way:
20% Vanguard Total Market (VTI)
10% Vanguard Mid-Cap (VO)
10% Vanguard Small-Cap (VB)
10% PowerShares Micro-Cap (PZI)
10% Vanguard REIT (VNQ)
10% Vanguard Materials (VAW)
10% Vanguard European (VGK)
10% Vanguard Pacific (VPL)
10% Vanguard Emerging Market (VWO)

I have placed market orders to purchase the appropriate amount of shares of each to total $100,000. But if something weird happens and I can’t fill all orders, I may have to adjust the amounts soon after market open to make it work.

Of course while this ETFPortfolio and the ETF Portfolio in the Portfolio Smackdown will be similar, they each started at different times with their $100,000.

And I gotta say, hey, the ETF Portfolio performed fantastically in the 1st quarter: up a whopping 9.6% to $109,584.39. The Cramer portfolio struggled (victim of the Cramer Crackle a few times) and only gained 5.6% to $105,591.98. It will do better this next quarter, won’t it?

Mon, April 3 2006 » Announcements

2 Responses

  1. filmking April 4 2006 @ 9:10 am

    Love your show. Due to the ambiguous info on the competitions, like are there one or two competitions, I signed up both at Zacks and Investopedia and created two accounts as Filmking. Thinking these were two competions, one called Guru and the other ?? I created two portfolios… now I see that these are one and the same and post at eiother web site. ONe lists me by email address and nickname and the other by username… hope I didn’t screw things up for you. So I don;t ewant to be a pig and have two entries… what should I do?? again the show is cool and best of luck and success.

    FilmKing

  2. Paul Douglas Boyer April 4 2006 @ 9:23 am

    I have to admit, the way Zacks and Investopedia have set things up it is very confusing. Keep plugging away and we’ll figure it out eventually… trial and error.

    If you have two entries in the competition, HAVE FUN WITH IT!!!

    I have two entries: MadMoneyMachineCOM and ETFPortfolio and both will be WILDLY different styles.

    I suggest you do the same thing! What a great way to learn.

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