The King

CONVICTION is powerful but there is no such thing called SURE THING in Stock Market

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Oh God! What a wonderful journey this has been. This Strategy Lab Open competition is a very memorable one. It feels great to participate in a tournament like this where one has to teach a few investing lessons to fellow competitors while competing with them for 5 long months. The people here have done a fantastic job of sharing their ideas and experiences with others. They helped people to make some real money outside of this competition also. We all became much better investors after 5 short months. We did not lose anything because of revealing our secrets of success because we have received equally valuable tips from others. I am sure that every one is gearing up for the SLO-2.

During the early part of the competition, the quality of postings was not good. You need to wait for the next post from JeffKalnitz , DocA or Dishwasher. We started seeing better postings as some new stars started to emerge in November. I thank every one who has contributed their bit through good postings. I know that some of the people are disappointed for not getting proper ratings from others even though they have spent time to come out with a very thoughtful posting. Not every one is as lucky as dishwasher . I request every one to give ratings solely based on the merits of the article. After reading the article, make sure to ask yourself how useful the information has been to you? Did it change your thinking ? Did it influence your stocks selection ? If you don't give ratings to good articles, then we lose those good writers. They lose interest in posting here.

For the first 2 or 3 months in this competition I used to find myself in the last page (500+ club) . I have struggled to get to a NAV of 10. I wondered how some people managed to get 30% gains when I couldn't even get a break even. Then with October earnings season, finally things started working for me. Once my earnings bets started paying off, I started moving forward by 100 ranks every week and made it to top 100 by second week of November. From the beginning of the competition I have always felt that it is an honor to finish in the top 100 and I still feel the same. Even though I have now reached the top10 league (my rank is shown as 11 but once the Friday's results are updated, it should show my rank as 9), I still believe that there are 100 winners in this competition. On my way up, I have noticed that some of the people, who ranked in 300+ region, have wonderful portfolios. I have seen that the people in the 200+ region are very competitive and it was very difficult to go past them. They are all very good traders. They just need their time. If there is another SLO in future (SLO-2 ), then I am sure that there will be lot of surprises.

When I look at the Strategy Lab competition in MSN, I wonder why the Pros over there can't come out of red ? Why can't they change the stocks the way we are doing in the competition? I think that the toppers in our competition are much more dynamic than the Pros. We beat them so bad that there is little doubt in my mind about who is going to win the next round of Strategy lab competition. I am sure that who ever wins our SLO contest will handsomely beat the Pros. The winner here could be Dishwasher or stocksshah or jsIRA2007.

My opinions about some of the best players in this competition .
Colbyhouse : In my opinion, he is the best investor amongst us. In fact I believe that he has a potential to be a future Warren Buffett. His performance has been amazing. This super secretive investor has created a portfolio and stuck to it for a very long time and he still managed to be in the top5 for majority of the competition. Then he rebalanced his portfolio in November and that's it. If you look at his NAV, he ranks number 2 in SLO but some how he failed some compliance test recently and that's why they don't show his ranking any more. For me it is amazing to observe a man with a passive investing style beat out 550 active traders even in a shorter version of this investment competition. If he ever were to start a investment firm, I will put all my money with him and sleep happily.
Dishwasher : While colbyhouse is the best investor amongst us, dishwasher is the best trader in SLO. He combines great stock picking and market timing skills with deadly Vulture skills. His biggest strength is his ability to do those vulture trades on badly beaten companies. He surged past every body else with those trades during the mortgage crisis.
jsIRA2007 : He is the best market timer in SLO. He is also a good stock picker. I hope that he has learnt a lesson that one should not blindly follow others suggestions. He burnt his fingers trying to follow dishwasher's foray into Airline stocks. While dishwasher made some quick exit (he has remarkable ability to exit a bad position with a lightning speed) jsIRA2007 stayed a bit longer and lost lot of money. Anyway, I have always believed that the winner of this SLO will be either dishwasher or colbyhouse or jsIRA2007. These 3 people will shine in any market.
Stockshah : He is riding on Solar boom. He saw the power of Solar much before the rest of us and he still believes that the sector has a lot more to go. In recent days he is diversifying into many other areas and he is still keeping his number 1 rank. It looks like his vision is not narrowed down to Solar as many tend to believe. It will be interesting to see how he will fare in SLO-2.I personally believe that the Solar stocks have already reached their fair value and it might be risky to chase them now. One has to look at P/E and the growth rate before jumping into any stock. I continue to stick to WFR among solar stocks. I think that YGE and LDK are also good companies. I do not want to venture into STP, FSLR and SPWR because they are too pricey at this point.

JeffKalitz : I think that out of all the bloggers, Jeff made the best contribution to the forum by highlighting the value of AAPL and MA. Those who have followed his advice would have made lot of money in this competition and real world. Unfortunately I did not buy his advice on MA. As for AAPL, I was the biggest AAPL bull in this SLO from the very first day of the competition. AAPL always used to occupy 23% of my portfolio. I have reduced my position only after it reached $190. If there is a SLO-2, then I will blindly buy what ever Jeff recommends.
Jonathan Coyle ( jaudio ) : Isn't he the most interesting person we have met in this contest ? His ride in this SLO has been truly hilarious. We all have learnt a few good names among Ultra Short ETFs from him.

How I made it to the top 10
If there is one quality I have to thank for making me reach the top 10, it is CONVICTION. I made some firm bets with MSFT, WFR and LDK and it paid off in a big way. When every one stayed away from LDK, I have accumulated it as much as I can. I firmly believed that one day it will bounce back hard. It has been my biggest winner. After its earnings report it has fallen pretty bad and I lost about 7% in my portfolio. I was late in getting rid of it and I have paid the price. I should have sold half of my position just before the earnings report. I just believed that the stock will march towards $90 after the earnings report. I was dreaming about standing ahead of dishwasher :) . Now I have to wait for SLO-2 (if it comes) for that moment. Now, the game is over. Not putting a stop limit order was a mistake. I was once again reminded by stock market that there is no such thing called SURE THING in stock market.

It was nice to play this game. I hope that there will be another edition of this game in future. Happy Holidays every one.