Mary Sue Williams has
won the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. Congratulations, Mary Sue.
But don’t expect $1 million. Instead, you’ll get $100,000 up front, plus $36,000
per year for the next 25 years.
Mary Sue won the contest by managing to get a 29%
gain over the space of two weeks. Which is about 75,000% per year. The present
value of Mary Sue’s actual prize, discounted at 75,000%, is, roughly, $100,000
– one-tenth of the million dollars she’s nominally winning.
Then again, given how idiotic
the whole challenge was from the start, I’m glad that the prize is going to
someone who seems likely to use it well. At least some good is coming out of
this meretricious debacle.