If
you remember after the first month of the competition i posted a message
saying that the stocks which were only picked by one or two people were
performing much better than the popular picks.
Consensus seemed to be at the time that this was
because the popular picks were already fully bought up.
However half way through the competition there has been a big
turnaround. The top ten most popular picks are putting in a very
credible performance. Apart from ITC they were all fairly
mainstream stocks rather than speculative, although at the time AIR was rather
speculative.
The stocks which were only picked by one person have had mixed fortunes, some
making big gains others big losses, but as a group they are now in negative
return territory.
What does all this mean? One could look at it and say
solid companies with real earnings are best. On the other hand last year
it was the speculative stocks which won the day.
Will be interesting to see if the stocks performing best in the first half
also perform best in the second. Its not hard to imagine ITC putting in
another shocking half, will not be so easy for AIR to beat the competition in
the second half.
My picks
would be FFS , FBU ,WAM and TEL.
Mind you i am no judge, i picked speculative
stocks specifically for the competition (held none) and am now languishing
near the bottom.
FFS + 4%
TEL
-4%
WHS
+14%
GPG
+9%
FBU
-4%
WAM +4%
SKC
+8%
AIA
+12%
AIR
+110%
ITC -48%
Nick
See IRG research reports
