Kelly, who has specialised in US shares, had been languishing in last place for much of the competition. He risked everything on a last ditch 50 per point trade on Google. On the back of the announcement that Google was set to join the S&P Index, Google rocketed, making Bill over 200,000 in five days. "I knew drastic action was called for so I bought Google, " he says. "Then I went on holidays and came back in first place."

Google has become popular with traders who want to turn their fortunes around.

But it doesn't always work, as Michael Dwyer of Pigsback. com has found. At one point he was down to an account valuation of just 78,000 as he had bet that Google would fall. He ruthlessly slashed his position, and made the opposite bet, recovering to 108,000 by lunchtime on Friday. "I still think Google is overvalued but you can't fight the institutions, " he added.

Sell Google is what rugby legend Ross O' Carroll Kelly did, as he tried to claw his way back up the leaderboard.

O'Carroll Kelly had to find selling opportunities in a rising market, which is difficult, but his trading is starting to suggest desperation.

Meanwhile, property developer Sean Dunne has beaten Today FM's Willie O'Reilly into second place, as the oil barons slug it out for control of the market. It was interesting to see Dunne wade in with a 300 per point trade as Brent Crude broke through a critical resistance level and surged upwards.

O'Reilly was into the market earlier, and took most of the advance, but Dunne is swinging a bigger bat which means that for every 1 cent advance he moves forward at double O'Reilly's rate.

Gay Mitchell, TD and MEP, continued to prosper on his S&P and FTSE Index positions, following a strong week.

Irish equity traders have had a good week, with Ken MacDonald of Hooke and MacDonald doing well on his Irish Life and Permanent holding, and Niall Quinn seeing his Irish financial stocks rally.

The currency traders had very different experiences, as Tanya Airey of Sunway Travel struggled in the face of a weakening Australian dollar.

John O'Shea of GOAL prospered, as a rallying euro helped him post a 15,000 gain.

Readers Competition This was always going to be a competition that favoured the decisive risk taker. The trick was to pick the best performing celebrity trader each week and switch ruthlessly.

Teacher Carmel Dunphy leads the chase for the 5,000 top prize, with 73,108. With the competition due to end at the close of trading on Thursday, she leads Bolton Street student Adam Byrne by 3,416.

Conor Brangan is in third place with 63,393, almost 10,000 behind the leader.

Dunphy invested her notional 10,000 in Sean Dunne, and stuck with him for four weeks.

She then switched her portfolio to Bill Kelly - just in time to catch his 224% return last week. Byrne also made that switch to Bill Kelly, but suffered from over-diversifying early on. A second-year engineering student playing the markets for the first time, he said "after a bad start I new I had to make dramatic changes".

With less than a week remaining, it is down to that crucial final switching opportunity. Readers who wish to switch celebrity traders should change by 3pm this Monday.

The new selection will become active on Tuesday morning.

To change your selections log onto www. deltaindex. ie and follow the link.