Who Benefits from the CNBC Portfolio Challenge?
The answer is OptionsXpress (OXPS). They are the primary sponsor of the CNBC challenge and considering how many hits the site gets everyday with over half a million people enrolled in the contest, I believe OXPS will see a spike in subscriber growth and market share.
In fact, thestreet.com (TSCM) also started a similar challenge in April, sponsored by OptionsXpress. Looks like even more subscribers for OptionsXpress.
– Faisal Laljee
Full Disclosure: I do not own any OXPS but my position can change anytime without notice.
I should hope oxps gets some ’subscribers’ from being a paid sponsor of these contests . Its called advertising? Not sure what your beef is…
No beef. I think its very smart. While competitors TD Ameritrade and E-Trade pay for traditional advertising with their full page ads on WSJ and IBD, not to mention the seemless banner ads on Yahoo Finance etc., OXPS found a perfect way to attract customers. It will cost them a lot less to convert these customers than it does to attract banner clickers.
Also, no one expected that CNBC would advertise the heck out of the million dollar portfolio challenge the way they did and I believe even the people at CNBC are surprised at attracting well over a million contestants.