CNBC issued a statement Friday afternoon about its investigation into its Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge game.
In part, the statement said, “CNBC is investigating whether one or more finalists wrote and executed computer program scripts to bypass the contest’s security measures.
“Additionally, some contestants were able to change their trades after the markets closed at 4 pm ET, but before the trades were processed by CNBC. That way, a contestant could have executed trades after hours, and have the trades priced as of that day’s market close.Â
“CNBC has retained two leading consultants in the information security industry to investigate these two computer programming related issues.
“In addition, there have been allegations that one or more contestants may have engaged in illegal market manipulation to affect actual prices of stocks represented in their contest portfolios.
“CNBC has engaged an independent securities expert to determine whether such activity took place.”
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