CNBC may disqualify some of its top 20 finishers

BusinessWeek’s Tim Catts is reporting that CNBC may disqualify some of the top 20 finishers in its $1 million stock picking contest, which may mean that a day trader who has had run-ins with securities regulators could be the winner.

Catts wrote, “The man is Joe Dondero, who attended the College of New Jersey until 1999 and is now a trader at Visionary Trading in New Jersey. According to records from the National Association of Securities Dealers, Dondero was ‘the subject of multiple NASD inquiry letters.’ Records from the New Jersey Bureau of Securities show that he was ‘discharged’ from one securities firm for his trading activity.

“Dondero declined to comment on his work history or his trading for this story. Reached on the afternoon of June 13 at a local horse-racing track, he said, ‘I’d be happy to talk after CNBC comes out with something, but until then I have no comment,’ he said.

“Anointing Dondero as the million-dollar winner would make for quite a finale for the American Idol of the stockpicking set. CNBC, part of General Electric, launched the contest in March and attracted 375,000 participants with heavy promotions from popular anchors such as Joe Kernen and Becky Quick. It nearly tripled traffic to the channel’s Web site, as CNBC.com profiled the top performers and viewers weighed in with comments on their favorites.”

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