HERE’S TO THE WINNERS

The D Magazine Stock Marathon results are now in. The overall winner is Brian Olson, a retail broker at Smith Barney’s Preston Center office, whose five-stock portfolio was valued at $786,286 as of Dec. 29, up an impressive 215 percent from its $250,000 starting level. In second place at $732,895 was Jim Kennedy from Hunt Valley, Md., who entered after picking up a copy of D Magazine while passing through Dallas last year. Both portfolios owed much of their gains to Iomega, which went from $4.81 to more than $48 per share. Mr. Olson’s portfolio also benefited from a buyout of Dallas-based Saber Software that led to a gain of 146 percent. Jodi Lutz of Irving placed third overall with portfolio gains of 89 percent for the year.

Among the 10 invited expert participants, first place goes to Stacy Oelsen, senior vice-president of Institutional Sales at Smith Barney. His portfolio, fourth place overall with a gain of 82 percent, had its largest gain in USA Waste, a growing Dallas-based waste management company. Steve Smith of Nations Bank just edged out Kay Self of Prudential Securities for second place among the experts, with a gain of 32 percent. This gain just matched the overall performance for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Stock Index over the period of the contest. The University of North Texas undergraduate finance majors came in sixth among the experts with a portfolio return of 19 percent.

Our thanks to University of North Texas instructor Doug Van Eaton for his invaluable help with tracking the contest. And thanks to all those who took part.