I am in it to win it – the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. I got hooked.

Since Thursday I’ve been in Chicagoland making plans with new partners and a presentation for Scottrade’s User Summit. One of my visits took me to the offices of Kingstree Trading LLC to see Charles McElveen, its gracious and amiable owner, and Dr. Brett Steenbarger – only hours before his Friday evening appearance on CNBC. Brett’s advice in the CNBC segment prompted me to enter the contest with the words, “think independently“.

So here goes.

My choices reflect my thinking. Using Trade-Ideas only points out exactly what stocks match that thinking. Of course if I win I’m going to give Trade-Ideas all the credit. If I fall to the bottom of the pack then of course it was my own inane fault. I took a quick look to see what sectors are up in the last few days from the tools found on the CNBC site. I then created the following free scans in the Trade-Ideas Research Center.

Up 3% 20,50,200 MA
Edit the scan

Although the scan is sorted by the maximum number of days up on top, I scrolled down the list to the mid-point or so and chose from there – specifically:

• WOOF
• KRON
• OEH

WallStrip‘s mission of documenting the cultural impact of certain stocks at all time highs inspired my next scan. Scroll to the bottom of the site and you’ll see our widget.

Stocks at All Time Highs
Edit the scan

Here’s what I added to my CNBC Portfolio from this list:

• SZE
• X

We’ll see what damage I’ve done on Monday!

UPDATE – April 12, 2007:
I bought more stocks with this scan