Blacknbengal
Well-Known Member
Is waitress a stock guru?
A woman who has never bought a share of stock is the likely winner of CNBC's stock-picking contest. But she doesn't plan to risk the prize money with the same investment strategy.
It's Friday afternoon in the tiny Appalachian town of St. Clairsville, Ohio, and Mary Sue Williams is about to begin her shift as a waitress at Undo's, a spacious Italian restaurant that overlooks Interstate 70.
She enjoys taking care of her regulars, she says, and after nine years in her job, she has accumulated plenty of them. Even with dozens of the restaurant's tables empty, she cuts quickly across the floor to the bar to refill an empty water glass.
"I'm going to do this until I can't walk," Williams says, insisting that she wouldn't quit for a million dollars.
That conviction may soon be put to the test. Williams could be in line to win the stock-picking contest sponsored by cable channel CNBC, which carries a million-dollar grand prize.
According to the last official standings, posted May 25, she was in sixth place, with a 29% return during the two-week final round. But as BusinessWeek first reported, a handful of top finishers are suspected of exploiting a loophole in CNBC's trading software to inflate their returns. CNBC later acknowledged the problems and said it will disqualify contestants who violated any of the game's rules.
Based on BusinessWeek's analysis of the trading results for the contest's finalists, Williams appears to be the most likely winner.
It would be a fairy-tale ending for a contest wrought with drama and controversy. Williams, 46, has been a waitress for 20 years and was a welder before that.
She has never bought or sold a real stock in her life. In fact, she says she never even paid much attention to the markets before signing up for the challenge. Yet Williams has already bested thousands of financial professionals who entered the contest with Ivy League degrees and complex trading models.
"Part of this was luck," she says. "A lot of it was a gut feeling, some eenie, meenie, minie, moe, and common sense."
Rest of Story
A woman who has never bought a share of stock is the likely winner of CNBC's stock-picking contest. But she doesn't plan to risk the prize money with the same investment strategy.
It's Friday afternoon in the tiny Appalachian town of St. Clairsville, Ohio, and Mary Sue Williams is about to begin her shift as a waitress at Undo's, a spacious Italian restaurant that overlooks Interstate 70.
She enjoys taking care of her regulars, she says, and after nine years in her job, she has accumulated plenty of them. Even with dozens of the restaurant's tables empty, she cuts quickly across the floor to the bar to refill an empty water glass.
"I'm going to do this until I can't walk," Williams says, insisting that she wouldn't quit for a million dollars.
That conviction may soon be put to the test. Williams could be in line to win the stock-picking contest sponsored by cable channel CNBC, which carries a million-dollar grand prize.
According to the last official standings, posted May 25, she was in sixth place, with a 29% return during the two-week final round. But as BusinessWeek first reported, a handful of top finishers are suspected of exploiting a loophole in CNBC's trading software to inflate their returns. CNBC later acknowledged the problems and said it will disqualify contestants who violated any of the game's rules.
Based on BusinessWeek's analysis of the trading results for the contest's finalists, Williams appears to be the most likely winner.
It would be a fairy-tale ending for a contest wrought with drama and controversy. Williams, 46, has been a waitress for 20 years and was a welder before that.
She has never bought or sold a real stock in her life. In fact, she says she never even paid much attention to the markets before signing up for the challenge. Yet Williams has already bested thousands of financial professionals who entered the contest with Ivy League degrees and complex trading models.
"Part of this was luck," she says. "A lot of it was a gut feeling, some eenie, meenie, minie, moe, and common sense."
Rest of Story