re: FINAL RESULTS: 2019 Top 5 Stock Pick 'em Contest as of 12/31/19 on page 32.

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This may or may not affect me this year but the rules were set before the year started as I have CELG that is in the process of being acquired. I think we need to stay with the rule set up when contest started. If someone has a better idea should be implemented before the start of the next contest with the rules In place from the start.

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Thanks. I agree with your comments but that doesn't mean it's fair to the players who happened to have one of their companies get bought out.

So far we've only had three of our original stock picks merged into a successor company. CELG would make it four if that merger is completed before the end of this year.

I've added an "Adjustments" tab to my spreadsheet for anyone's original stock picks that have been bought. I take the YTD % performance as of their date of merger and then I adjust it with the successor company's YTD performance since the date of the merger up to the most recent update date.

I've also included dividends paid by the successor company since the merger date in the adjustment.

I'd like to ask those players who have a company which got bought during the year to compute what they believe their YTD performance is for their successor company stocks and compare your results to the numbers that I came up with below.

So far the following mergers have occurred.

1. ynlvr's original pick First Data Corp (FDC) was merged into FISERV (FISV) on 7/29/2019.

As of 10/18/19 my computation shows the YTD % performance for the FDC/FISV combination is 65.51% as opposed to just the FISV YTD % of 43.79% shown in the update above.

2. Wade Phillips' original pick Total Systems Services (TSS) was merged into Global Payments, Inc. (GPN) as of 9/17/2019.

As of 10/18/19 my computation shows the YTD % performance for the TSS/GPN combination is 63.53% as opposed to just the GPN YTD % of 55.30% shown in the update above.

3. Zilla's original pick Carbon Black (CBLK) was merged into VMWare, Inc. (VMW) as of 10/7/2019.

As of 10/18/19 my computation shows the YTD % performance for the CBLK/VMW combination is 93.43% as opposed to just the VMW YTD % of 10.95% shown in the update above.

I have not gone back and inserted these numbers into the most recent update above.