The Markets May 7, 2008

What's in a Name?

You can file this one under “people with way too much time on their hands.″

Reported by

Stockpickr.com, which calls itself the “popular online stock idea network’, has announced the launch of NameFolio. It’s an application designed to run on the Social Networking site Facebook.

Adding the application to one’s Facebook profile generates a mock portfolio (the aforementioned NameFolio) – which, in turn contains 1000 shares of each company whose ticker symbol is found within the name of the account holder. What’s the point of that? Well, the folks who have developed this “tool’ say that it allows users to “compete’ against their friends by determining the…wait for it…valuation of their names.

So – the application – which randomly picks stocks whose tickers match the letters of your name – in random, and changing groupings, shows you what the total value of 1,000 shares of each of the companies in the random and changing grouping is worth. And what your “friends’ name portfolios are worth – and, as it turns out, what the American Idol finalists are worth – – – and the Presidential candidates.

It changes every day of course – but at the market’s close yesterday, the Clinton portfolio was worth $172,000, just ahead of Obama’s $166,040 – and both well ahead of John McCain’s $100,500 – as follows:

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Hillary Clinton is worth $172,000 (as of May 7)

Ticker	My Stocks	Last
HILL	DOT HILL SYS CORP	2.65
A	AGILENT TECH INC	31.75
RY	ROYAL BANK OF CAN	47.97
CLI	MACK-CALI REALTY	38.10
NT	NORTEL NTWKS CP H	8.31
O	REALTY INCOME CP	24.64
N	NETSUITE INC	18.58

Barack Obama is worth $166,040

Ticker	My Stocks	Last
BA	BOEING CO	84.98
RACK	RACKABLE SYSTEMS	12.02
OB	ONEBEACON INS GRP	18.54
AM	AMER GREETINGS CL	18.75
A	AGILENT TECH INC	31.75

John McCain is worth $100,050

Ticker	My Stocks	Last
J	JJ SNACK FOODS	28.15
O	REALTY INCOME CP	24.64
H	HOOPER HOLMES INC	0.80
NM	NAVIOS MARITIME	13.49
CCA	MFS CALIFORNIA IN	11.71
IN	INTERMEC INC	21.26

As for Nevin Adams….well, my name-based portfolio was ahead of them all – $187,610, based on a holding of:

Ticker	My Stocks	Last	Change %	Open	Day’s Range	Volume
NE	NOBLE CORP	61.79	-0.47	63.24	61.59 – 63.79	5,695,175
V	VISA INC.	88.50	+0.97	88.83	87.66 – 89.84	25,104,956
IN	INTERMEC INC	21.26	-0.55	21.88	21.12 – 21.97	746,169
ADAM	ADAM INC	6.90	-0.14	6.97	6.87 – 7.06	16,625
S	SPRINT NXTEL CP	9.16	-0.03	9.66	8.97 – 9.73	71,281,040