Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Bank teller cashes A Wahiawa man's bullish belief in Wall Street paid off to the tune of $1,000 thanks to the Star-Bulletin's 11th-annual "Pick the Dow" contest.
in, wins $1,000
Dow contest
A Wahiawa man's pick for
the index is just 5.04 points
off the actual closeStar-Bulletin staff
Jacob Kunukau, a 28-year-old teller for Central Pacific Bank, guessed the Dow would end Friday at 11,187.59, just 5.04 points off the actual close of 11,192.63.
"I just had faith that the market would go up," said Kunukau, whose investments include "a 401(k), IRAs and a couple of stocks."
Last month, the Star-Bulletin asked readers to guess where the Dow would be at the end of trading Friday, Aug. 25. The closest guess takes the $1,000 prize. The last day to enter was July 29, when the Dow was at 10,511. Since then, the blue-chip index has rallied about 6.5 percent.
Kunukau's guess beat out 1,198 other entries, including one that was within 5.21 points of the closing mark. This was the second year he had entered the Star-Bulletin contest.
As for his $1,000 prize, Kunukau said he would "invest half of it and spend the rest. Go to Vegas maybe."
Last year's winner also was from Wahiawa. Colleen "Koko" Murayama credited her Dad for her winning entry, which had the exact closing number, right down to the decimals.
The Dow is an index of 30 top U.S. stocks, such as AT&T Corp., Intel Corp., Coca-Cola Co, International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp.
It has been a widely followed indicator of the stock market since Oct. 1, 1928. The Dow, down 2.65 percent for the year at Friday's close, is now off 2.12 percent for the year. Its best closing high this year was 11,750.20 on Jan. 14.