Stock Tips 2005 Revisited

too bad he didn't have the REAL winners for 2005

GOOG

CME

AMGN

ISRG

DNA

Archipelago

but some good calls in there

I certainly won't question your math regarding the individual stocks, but where are your index numbers coming from? In looking at closing numbers from 12/1 and 11/30, the 52 week and YTD figures are off. Check it out.

BTW, as an individual investor, I would never hold that number of stocks in my portfolio. Maybe, it's just me but I couldn't manage that many.

You are right, dividends got left out of the analysis for both stocks and indicies. Through 12/1, the S&P is up a little more than 6% YTD.

How did that monkey that throws darts at the stock section of the newspaper end up doing this year?

You should question all of the calculations, since I do not invest at this time. I am trying to learn enough to feel comfortable when I jump in. I just used closing stock price on Dec 31, 2004 for the individual stocks (from Yahoo), and it says that closing prices are adjusted for dividends, etc. Don't know if that is true or not. As for the indexes, I only used the index number, not including dividends, etc. Feel free to make corrections. I thought that Molvar's thoughts were very good in the thread from above, and I just thought that I would update an interesting discussion with some numbers and see if anyone else has anything useful to say.

The actual index numbers from the close on 12/31/2004 through 12/01/2005 are:

Index 12/31/04 12/01/05 percent_gain

Dow 10783.01 10912.57 +1.20%

S&P500 1211.92 1264.67 +4.35%

Nasdaq 2175.44 2267.17 +4.21%

The value for the S&P counting dividends is 6.14%

But the analysis above has bigger problems than this, because it does not take in account stock splits correctly. The only stock listed by John Molvar that I mentioned in the day trading thread last year as having in my hedge fund us Chicos. The number above shows Chicos having a loss of approximately 1%. In fact, CHS is up approximately 100% this year, so mcgato needs to do more homework before drawing any conclusions.

For the record, in the daytrading (which I am most definitely not) thread, I mentioned 3 stocks that I had in my fund and had owned for some time. These are the results:

NVR 769.4 694.0 -9.8%

CHS 22.77 44.89 +97.15%

URBN 22.20 31.07 +39.95%

Average gain 42.43%

Easy there, mcgato. I wasn't coming down on you. I just wanted to point out that the indicies you noted might be in error, depending on the day and time you wrote them down. Just for your information, these are the numbers:

Closing 12/1-

DJIA: 1.20% YTD 3.09 52 weeks

Nasdaq 4.22 5.77

S&P500 4.35 6.25

Russell2000 5.93 7.42

Now, as for additional comments: the real question is, what do you measure that portfolio against? Lots of small caps and speculative stocks, IMHO, so you MAY want to measure against the Russell. If you can buy that argument, then the total return, while beating the index, isn't that great for the number of stocks you need to manage. You could do just about as well or better with some easy to manage stock funds, although I do enjoy the challenge of individual stocks.

Turtle souped up,

I wasn't insulted by your implication. I was interested in the thread earlier in the year, especially Molvar's comments. At that time, many insults were thrown and people were claiming this or that was the next big thing. Like pre-season football predictions, it is interesting to go back and look to see how the prognosticators really did.

I also don't understand the markets that well, so I thought that I might learn some more. I don't really understand how to figure the dividends into the return equation or a lot of other things. I probably should just stick with index funds, as I don't have the stomach or time for individual stocks.

Speed Kills,

You are right about Chico's splitting. I didn't look too closely, so others may have split that I missed. For the record, adjusting Chico's makes Molvar's average return 11.9%.

OK, I checked for other splits, and I think that these should be corrected from the above list:

Stage Stores (STGS): 27.68 -> 30.66 = 10.8%

Diodes (DIOD): 15.09 -> 27.35 = 81.3%

American Eagle Outfitters (AEOS): 23.55 -> 21.14 = -10.2%

Sports Chalet Stores (SPCHB): 55.84 -> 9.50 = -83.0%

Chico's Fas Stores (CHS): 22.77 -> 44.89 = 97.2%

Making an average change of 13.5%.

You heard it first here. In 2006, the mainstream public will finally jump on gold and gold mining stocks. We have been in a bull market for 5 years and yet still no one has noticed.

mcgato wrote:

AMX Corp (AMXC): ????

Siliconix (SILI): ????

United Defense Industries (UDI): ????

I don't think your average means much without knowing what these picks did. ???? might mean bankruptcy, and three -100%'s wouldn't help that average much.

How did he manage to miss out on Apple? It's up 102% since April.

dukerdog,

For some reason I couldn't get those on Yahoo, but I just checked deeper, and they should be:

AMX Corp (AMXC): 16.47 -> 22.46 = 36.4%

Siliconix (SILI): 36.49 -> 39.46 = 8.1%

United Defense Industries (UDI): 47.25 -> 74.98 = 58.7%

Which makes the overall average return 14.6%.

And some of the other recommendations, some good and some horrible, from that thread:

Clorox (CLX): 58.93 -> 54.46 = -7.6%

Exxon Mobile (XOM): 51.26 -> 59.27 = 15.6%

British Petroleum (BP): 58.40 -> 67.87 = 16.2%

Kinder Morgan (KMP): 44.33 -> 49.63 = 12.0%

Fidelity Select Energy (FSESX): 42.65 -> 65.80 = 54.3%

Oppenheimer Global Opportunities (OGICX): 32.10 -> 35.49 = 10.6%

Starbucks (SBUX): 31.18 -> 31.76 = 1.9%

Praxair (PX): 44.15 -> 52.88 = 19.8%

Rambus (RMBS): 23.00 -> 17.88 = -22.3%

Humana (HUM): 29.69 -> 47.81 = 61.0%

Pacific Health Systems (PHS): 56.52 -> 87.99 = 55.7%

Toll Brothers (TOL): 34.30 -> 35.93 = 4.8%

Krispy Kreme (KKD): 12.60 -> 4.94 = -60.8%

Calgon Carbon Corp (CCC): 9.08 -> 5.88 = -35.2%

Cronos Group (CRNS): 10.32 -> 12.00 = 16.3%

Layne Christensen (LAYN): 18.15 -> 22.25 = 22.6%

Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI): 7.62 -> 7.11 = -6.7%

Kmart / Sears (SHLD): 98.95 -> 115.43 = 16.7%

Gateway Computers (GTW): 6.01 -> 3.05 = -49.3%

Martha Stewart (MSO): 29.02 -> 19.61 = -32.4%

Altria Group (MO): 61.10 -> 73.37 = 20.1%

Acacia Research / CombiMatrix (CBMX): 3.97 -> 1.81 = -54.4%

Stemcells, Inc (STEM): 4.23 -> 4.12 = -2.6%

Taylor Devices (TAYD): 6.87 -> 3.22 = -53.1%

Microsoft (MSFT): 26.72 -> 27.98 = 4.7%

Netflix (NFLX): 12.33 -> 27.49 = 123.0%

Yahoo (YHOO): 37.68 -> 40.98 = 8.8%

Imax Corp (IMAX): 8.25 -> 8.48 = 2.8%

Vanguard Europe Funds (VEURX): 25.99 -> 27.75 = 6.8%

Vanguard Emerging Markets (VEIEX): 14.68 -> 18.53 = 26.2%

iShares MSCI Pacific (EPP): 100.93 -> 101.56 = 0.6%

Vanguard MSCI 1750 Fund (VIMSX): 15.64 -> 17.86 = 14.2%

NavTeq (NVT): 46.36 -> 44.70 = -3.6%

Vice Fund (VICEX): 15.62 -> 16.55 = 6.0%

Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB): 2936.00 -> 3020.50 = 2.9%

I realize some of these recommendations were jokes.

That would've been good advice 5 years ago. Now all the John Q. Suckers will get in at the top like they did in 1980.

Anyway, it's not just gold, all metals have experienced a terrific bull market. Cu at all time highs, Ag at $8.25/oz, Fe and non-ferrous very strong too. All miners are doing well.