CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

Ten-week, stock and currency trading competition run by CNBC and sponsored by FXCM.

Objective

FXCM, a US Forex broker, partnered with CNBC to sponsor the One Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. This is a virtual trading contest where each participant receives one million virtual dollars to use trading currencies and stocks. To facilitate this, it was necessary to build a virtual environment where contestants would trade for ten subsequent weeks. 

Solution

The obvious choice was to use FXCM’s existing web terminal since it could run on both Mac and Windows workstations. However, in order to comply with the contest’s rules, it had to be altered significantly. And since the contest couldn’t be interrupted due to technical issues or hackers, the highest level of reliability and security had to be attained.

Business Impact
  • Because of the contest, forex continued to realize an increase in popularity.
  • For FXCM, this proved to be an excellent advertising campaign.
  • Due to its successful run, CNBC decided to partner with FXCM again in 2009 and 2010.