Summer Stock-Picking Contest

Picking stocks in summer??? Sheesh.

Short

DJIA - 17068.0
S&P500 - 1985.17

10 contracts each.

Completely forgot about this.. My index shorts would have been nice if real lol

Dow

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S&P500

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Some nice picks on this thread...wish I would have jumped in back when it started. I'm no mGrunin (then again, who is?), but I would recommend buying VHC if you have a little extra $$ to invest. It is looking more and more like they are going to win a HUGE case against AAPL any day now, and when that happens, the stock is projected to instantly double or possibly even triple. Some even think it will reach $100 a share shortly after the decision is announced.

Buy some VHC so you have extra money for CEO Sam's new BST. Now back to your regularly scheduled WF drama...

$8 gets you a straddle on this until January 2015.

Tempting if I was ever to get back into the options game again. (But the last time I did options, I lost so much so fast, my wife nearly divorced me). So I will pass.
 
$8 gets you a straddle on this until January 2015.

Tempting if I was ever to get back into the options game again. (But the last time I did options, I lost so much so fast, my wife nearly divorced me). So I will pass.

Understandable. Wives are pretty easy going when a gamble pays off, but when they go south, it can get ugly in a hurry. I don't mess with options - just stocks. I don't have anything against them; just don't have any experience with them.

This came out today regarding the VHC vs. AAPL case. The case against AAPL continues to get stronger on a daily basis, and if/when the case is decided in VHC's favor, you will easily double or triple your money. Obviously no guarantees when it comes to Wall St., but this is looking more and more like a home run.
 
$8 gets you a straddle on this until January 2015.

Tempting if I was ever to get back into the options game again. (But the last time I did options, I lost so much so fast, my wife nearly divorced me). So I will pass.

Options are fine if you only buy a enough contracts that represent in total the amount you would normally be investing..... but who does that?
 
Nice picks. I think you might be winning.

What was your reasoning for picking KMP?

In short: Low interest rates and increasing domestic oil production make pipeline MLP's a very attractive investment.

Oil pipelines have the advantage of being tied to the domestic production of oil but not to the price of oil, and the nature of oil pipelines means the demand is very inelastic. The MLP structure means that KMP does not have to pay corporate taxes, and they distribute their profit in the form of very large (untaxed) dividends to shareholders.

This gives you an investment that generates very high returns (both in value and in their 7-10%+/yr dividends) while having very little risk, no matter what the economic climate is. Lots of upside with very little downside.

The big surge in value was due to a consolidation. Kinder Morgan Inc is going to be buying out the rest of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP) leaving everyone who owned KMP stock with a nice payout. I was not expecting this consolidation, but I did feel that KMP was better value than other MLP's. Rich Kinder has vocally expressed the same sentiment quite frequently this year and his recent actions are in line with that thought.
 
Okay heading into Labour Day weekend, it looks Cardine is a lock. I'm away from the office until Tuesday so I can't check the charts until then.

But I'm heading out on a trip on Wednesday so I don't really want to crosscheck everybody's else pick so here is what I want to do:

Cardine, can you please post me your Bitcoin wallet so I can send you your prize money. Please post it to this thread so everybody can see it.

I will post a screen snap of payment made once I know your wallet address next week.

EVERYBODY else check your picks and if any of them popped in the last 3 weeks lemme know and I will have a look at it.

But Cardine looks to the winner right now.
 
Well it looks like I won. I'd like to thank mgrunin for not taking part in this competition. We have our differences but I'm not sure if I could match up to him based on his prior success.

Benji asked me to publicly post my bitcoin address so he can post a screenshot of him sending the prize money, so here it is:
1GtFiZJoB4wp4XwFSdXqCN75ZqfMV6K3WS

Look out for the day where I move beyond just using my contrarianism for investing decisions and I start to also use artificial intelligence* ;)

*And it won't be for sale. Anyone who sells a program to make stock picks for you is probably a snake oil salesmen.
 
Well it looks like I won. I'd like to thank mgrunin for not taking part in this competition. We have our differences but I'm not sure if I could match up to him based on his prior success.

Benji asked me to publicly post my bitcoin address so he can post a screenshot of him sending the prize money, so here it is:

Look out for the day where I move beyond just using my contrarianism for investing decisions and I start to also use artificial intelligence* ;)

*And it won't be for sale. Anyone who sells a program to make stock picks for you is probably a snake oil salesmen.

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According to my quick calculations, I yielded 34.6% returns with the following stocks:
ONVO
7/29 - $8.29
9/3 - $7.69
Loss of .60 cents per share or -7.2%

TSLA
7/29 - $222.56
9/3 - $281.19
Gain of $58.63 per share or 26.3%

SSYS
7/29 - $103.80
9/3 - $119.90
Gain of $16.10 per share or 15.5%

Total 34.6% gains

Am I not the true winner? :)

Congrats to cardine, regardless.
 
According to my quick calculations, I yielded 34.6% returns with the following stocks:
ONVO
7/29 - $8.29
9/3 - $7.69
Loss of .60 cents per share or -7.2%

TSLA
7/29 - $222.56
9/3 - $281.19
Gain of $58.63 per share or 26.3%

SSYS
7/29 - $103.80
9/3 - $119.90
Gain of $16.10 per share or 15.5%

Total 34.6% gains

Am I not the true winner? :)

Congrats to cardine, regardless.

I think you messed up on your math - that is a return of 11.53%, not 34.6%. If we include your other pick for NUAN, your average return was 6.02%.

I had a loss of 5.71% (AAPL), a gain of 39.50% (KING), and a gain of 16.86% (KMP) for an average return of 16.88%.
 
I think you messed up on your math - that is a return of 11.53%, not 34.6%. If we include your other pick for NUAN, your average return was 6.02%.

I had a loss of 5.71% (AAPL), a gain of 39.50% (KING), and a gain of 16.86% (KMP) for an average return of 16.88%.

Thanks for clearing that up. I'm trying to learn the ropes and only play around on MarketWatch every now and then.

We should def have a stocks thread/mastermind group.
 
Next time we do it again I need find better online platform for managing stock-picking contests as this was a bit of a gong-show to manage on the backend.

I will probably start it up in January but not before, will be too damn busy for rest of 2014.
 
AAPL July 4, 2014: $95
AAPL Today: $134
=41% gain

Visa July 4, 2014: $54
Visa Today: $67
=24% gain

DNKN July 4, 2014: $46
DNKN Today: $53
=15% gain

Not too shabby:2drinkspit:

That's impressive, but the real question is: can you go from $10,000 to $100,000 in 6 months?
 
After seeing all the news about bitcoins I logged into my Coinbase account and realized I still had my winnings from this contest... and that the $50 prize from this contest is now worth nearly $2,000.

Just sold it all and am now completely bitcoin free for the impending crash. Thanks again Benji for running this contest!