UpDown has crossed the important 100,000 member milestone!  It’s been a rewarding journey since UpDown launched over a year ago.  Welcome and congratulations to our 100,000th member, fopso01!

I am thankful to all members who have contributed to our fast growth by inviting many of their friends -  moolanomy, lordelrond, darrenpa24, and aminash have invited the most.

We’re looking forward to improving the site and to adding exciting new features to make UpDown the best site to practice investing!

Michael, Co-Founder

Congratulations to udfisher for winning the first Monthly Performance Contest for the entire UpDown Community! He masterfully navigated extremely volatile markets throughout the month and won $500 for his remarkable work.

Last night I caught up with our winner to learn more about him, his thoughts about UpDown and the new payout system, and his strategy for making money in today’s markets. Here’s what he said:

“I am a relatively new investor, only following the markets closely since joining Updown in September.  I enjoy challenges, and with the markets starting to collapse in September, I decided to challenge myself to beat the markets.  Being a student, I don’t have spare money to put into the markets for real, which is why Updown offers such an outstanding opportunity to learn some skills that I can employ once I graduate, and am able to set aside some money to put into the market.  I’m setting myself up with the challenge to continue to outperform the markets, and continue developing my market instincts.

“I am a short term value trader, typically holding stocks that I like for a few days, until they appear to have yielded what they are going to for the time being.  In October, I enjoyed big returns from stocks like General Growth Properties (GGP), AIG (in the early part of the month), and as the month ended, Las Vegas Sands (LVS) and MGM Mirage (MGM).

As far as my performance in relation to the others on Updown, I am proud of the fact that so many were able to outperform the markets.  I was impressed by the fact that all of the top 20 contestants in October beat the markets by 75%, or more.  I am humbled to lead such an impressive pack of investors for the month.

On the new payout system, I think in many ways, it is better than the previous method.  I still think it should be a little more balanced, because people who beat the market by 40%, like my brother, only get a fraction of what people who beat it by 75% get, even though both are incredible performances, and should both be rewarded.

Finally, I’d like to congratulate everyone on an outstanding October, and wish everyone a successful November!”

-Bryan “udfisher” Fisher

Congratulations to 007wall-street, the winner of The UpDown Official Q3 Contest!

Since the contest was open to the entire UpDown Community, 007wall-street truly showed off his investing prowess by becoming the Q3 Champion. He beat the second place finisher by over 400%!

007wall-street has been a top investor on UpDown.com since the we launched the site on CNBC in September of 2007. He has offered many insightful stock tips to other members and put together a tremendously successful investing strategy. We would like to personally thank him for taking on such a great leadership role since the very beginning. Congratulations again from the entire UpDown Team!

Here is a list of the stocks bought and sold most by the top 100 performing investors on UpDown.com from market close on Friday, September 19th through market close on Friday, September 26th.

Most Bought:

1. JPM - JP Morgan Chase & Co.

2. NCC - National City Corp.

3. RIMM - Research in Motion Ltd.

4. WMT - Wall-Mart Stores, Inc.

5. WM - Washington Mutual Inc.

Most Sold:

1. SCA - Syncora Holdings Ltd.

2. MER - Merryl Lynch & Co., Inc.

3. SPY - SPDR Trust, Series 1 ETF

4. ETFC - E-Trade Financial Corp.

5. GOLD - Randgold Resources Ltd.

Invest well this week!

The UpDown Team

Check out the article in The Notre Dame Observer about the winner of The Summer 2008 $10,000 Student Contest, Notre Dame senior YowcephH.

He has also jumped into second place in The Official UpDown Q3 2008 Contest. Do you think he can make it two-for-two?

The UpDown Team

Congratulations to YowcephH, a senior at The University of Notre Dame and the winner of The UpDown Summer 2008 $10,000 Student Contest!

Yowceph increased the value of his UpDown portfolio by 216.67% during the contest, separating himself from a very talented field of more than 6,000 students from over 1,000 colleges and universities. He earned $2,000 for outperforming all of his peers in the face of uncertainty and tremendous volatility in the markets this summer.

Great work, Yowceph! Now, can you defend your title in the Fall Contest?

The UpDown Team

Check out this excellent analysis by LEGMAKER on the recent pullback of oil service companies and how to play oil stocks going forward. (It has also been published and praised on Seeking Alpha.)

Brendan, UpDown Team

UpDown Widgets are here! You can now display your UpDown Profile and post your UpDown Contest rankings on your blog. We have put the code for the widgets on the right side of your Home Page, right where the “Refer Friends to Earn More” box usually is. If you don’t see the code you want right away, just refresh the page. Try pasting the code into your blog and let us know what you think! I just tried it to show off the top 10 investors in the Official Q3 Contest below.

Also, post your blog here so we can link to it under our “Member Blogs” section. It would be great to connect all UpDown Bloggers!

Brendan, UpDown Team

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e have another good post from Diversifier in The Official UpDown.com Group about some basic strategies to profit in today’s market. If you have been struggling with your portfolio so far this year, we suggest that you check it out!

The UpDown Team

e would like to highlight the thoughtful post written by Diversifier in The Official UpDown.com Group on American consumption and the future of our economy.

Do you agree with him? Join the Group Discussion!

The UpDown Team