Bitcoin Is Number One Pick — Asset Manager Confident BTC Will Take Him 'to the Top' in Stock Draft Competition

At CNBC’s Stock Draft, an annual stock-picking competition, bitcoin was the number one pick. Tim Seymour, the founder of Seymour Asset Management, believes that the government will come out with regulations that support bitcoin. He is confident that the cryptocurrency will take him “to the top” this year.

Bitcoin Was Top Pick at Annual Stock Picking Competition

CNBC’s 2021 Stock Draft, an annual stock-picking competition, began last week. There are 10 contestants or teams of different professions. Each team makes 2 picks from a list of 60 stocks and other investments.

The teams are led by asset manager Tim Seymour of Seymour Asset Management, professional poker player Maria Ho, Olympic swimmer Ryan Murphy, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary (aka Mr. Wonderful), and “The Stock Guy” Jason Frank. Also competing are mentalist Oz Pearlman, supermodel Petra Nemcova, Tiktok star Josh Richards, professional basketball player for the Miami Heat Andre Iguodala, and Chief Investment Strategist and Portfolio Manager at Hightower Stephanie Link.

The founder and chief investment officer of Seymour Asset Management, Tim Seymour, won a drawing to make the first pick for the competition this year. The last time he got to make the first pick was in 2019 when he picked General Electric.

As an experienced investor in the cannabis space who manages Amplify Seymour Cannabis ETF (CNBS), Seymour was expected to pick a cannabis stock first. However, he chose bitcoin as his top pick this year, stating:

It wasn’t easy. There’s no Trevor Lawrence out there … [but] I’m happy to say … no cannabis. I’m taking the bitcoin talents to South Beach. That’s right. Number one pick: bitcoin.

The winner of the Stock Draft competition will be the one whose stocks have the highest average price appreciation between the closing price on April 29 and the close on Feb. 11, 2022.

Regarding the bitcoin chart, which some say looks “troubling at least in the near term,” Seymour replied, “I’m not worried about the near term and we’ve seen multiple pullbacks in bitcoin.” While admitting that he would have loved to have bought BTC at “$20K ago,” he said, “the sense for me is that we are starting to see much broader institutional adoption.”

Seymour further opined:

I expect a policy to follow through that is going to be very supportive of bitcoin … Bitcoin is going to take me to the top.

Seymour’s second pick was Tilray, a global leader in cannabis research, cultivation, processing, and distribution. Kevin O’Leary, another bitcoin proponent who has 3% of his portfolio in the cryptocurrency, picked Alphabet and Palantir.