Portfolio of the week - 2007

[peanuts]

This is the continuation of the Portfolio of the Week thread.

[peanuts]

2007 POTW Rules

2007 Pick Of The Week
Rules & Regulations

#1 To participate in the contest, enter your stock pick (long or short) or enter a cash position, between the close of trading on the last day of the trading week and no later than 3:59 p.m. Eastern on the first day of the next trading week. If you fail to state either "long" or "short" (or "buy" or "sell") on your pick, then your pick will default to a long position.

#2 If you wish to start in cash, meaning $$$ and not Meta Financial Group, whose symbol is CASH, you must so indicate by use of the dollar sign ($). Examples: $, $$$, Ca$h, etc. The idea is to eliminate any ambiguity. Failure to include the dollar sign in opening a "cash" position will result in your opening a position in Meta Financial Group.

#3 You may change a previously posted pick any time before the market opens on the first day of the trading week.

#4 NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX listed stocks will be the only possible sources of stocks from which to choose each week's stock. This is a stock picking contest, so avoid choosing ETF's. OTCBB and pink sheet stocks are not allowed.

#5 Any stock sold for a short position must have shares available to be actually sold short. Please use the Interactive Brokers site to make that determination. If you attempt to short a stock that is listed on IB as unavailable for shorting, it will count as one of your two plays for the week. If you just closed a position to attempt to open such an invalid short position, then you will have to wait until the following week to make your next play.

#6 Try to play stocks with good volume. Example: 50k+ shares per day average would be nice, 100k+ would be better. This is not a disqualifying rule, but a suggestion.

#7 No limit orders are allowed. ***one exception*** The only way to be able to play an IPO on the first day of trading is to enter a limit order for the position. There is no other way to get action on the first day of an IPO other than to place a limit order prior to market open for the stock. If the limit order is never filled, the scoring will be as if the player had chosen CA$H.

#8 If a player enters a pick before the market opens, they will get the opening price. If they enter a pick during the trading day, their opening price will be determined by the time stamp on their post. The recorded entry will be made at the opening price of the minute following the timestamp on the player's post. Important: do not edit your post in which you make your stock pick! If you do, then the prices at the time of the post and of the edit will be compared, and you will get the higher of the two in the case of a long position, or the lower of the two in the case of a short position. (The opposite of these holds true for a post in which you close a position.)

#9 You may close your play any time you like and enter a second pick, or you may simply stay in cash until you are ready to take your second position. You may decide to stay in cash the entire week and not play a stock long or short; that's fine too. (A cash position does not count as one of your two positions for the week.)

#10 The score is determined by the percentage change from the opening price to the closing price of each player's pick. Positions in CA$H do not appreciate or depreciate. If 2 positions are opened and closed during the week the score will be the sum of each of the position's percentage change. The score at the end of the week will determine the score for the yearly performance tracking. Choosing volatile stocks, or guessing on overnight earnings plays may affect your score drastically. Weighing risks will be an important aspect to winning the yearly performance contest.

#11 Failure to enter a stock pick or a cash position prior to 4:00 p.m. Eastern on the first day of the trading week will result in a 3% penalty on the player's portfolio balance for the yearly performance tracking. Because the contest starts with $1000 for each player, the penalty for beginning the contest later in the year will be a compounding 3% loss per week for each week not played.

#12 All picks must be entered after the market closes on the last day of the trading week (usually Friday) and prior to the market close on the first day of the next trading week (usually Monday—see rule #1 above). If a player anticipates being unable to post during that 72-hour window, he or she may make this known and make a pick for the following week(s) prior to the close of the current week's trading. However, in doing so the player understands and agrees that this pick is "carved in stone," and under no circumstances whatsoever may it be changed. Important: this allowance is intended as a matter of necessity, and not as a matter of convenience! Please do not abuse this allowance. If you're too disinterested to post your pick during the 72-hour window, then please come back when your interest level rises to the challenge.

#13 Only one player may play a given stock position at one time. The only way two players can play the same stock simultaneously is if one plays it long and the other plays it short. (See rule #5 above.)

[peanuts]

2007 POTW Contest

EVERYONE IS WELCOME - make your pick for the week and you'll also be entered into the yearly contest!

The POTW contest is your chance to display your stock-picking skills. This contest is run each week and the winner announced on the last trading day of the week. A twist is added to the contest now, read on...

What's new?

Beginning January 3, 2007, a yearly performance tracking portfolio will be added to the POTW contest. Here's the gist of it:

Each player will begin the year with $1000.00 in an imaginary account. Each week, the account balances will be affected by the performance displayed in the POTW contest by each player. The balance will be adjusted based on the player's weekly contest score (percentage change) with no transaction costs considered. If a player chooses CA$H, then the account balance remains the same. If a player fails to enter a pick for the weekly contest, then a 3% penalty will be placed on the offending player's account balance.

This yearly account tracking should be a learning experience for some. Consistent performance will be evident in the account balances over the year. It will also show just how detrimental a risky volatile stock might be to any portfolio, or vice versa. Those players that keep getting base hits throughout the year will do well by compounding gains.

hint: In order to double the account, it will only take a consistent 1.3419% weekly gain from the beginning of the year.

[peanuts]

POTW - Individual Portfolio Tracking

The Microsoft Excel file that is used to track and chart the yearly performance of the POTW contest will be available to whomever wants to see it in its entirety. Instructions follow.

1.) To view the complete scorecard for 2007 click this link: http://www.mediafire.com/?bd1jm2peizd
2.) Once you get to the Mediafire page, click the "Click here to start download.." link
3.) Choose the "open" option when the pop-up box appears, an Excel file will display on your screen.
(To zoom in and out, click any cell within the spreadsheet then hold down your 'Ctrl' button on your keyboard and scroll the wheel on your mouse)
4.) There are 2 tabs at the base of the spreadsheet, "Charts" and "Yearly Performance Tracking" The gold, silver, and bronze winners are highlighted for each week in the yearly tracking spreadsheet. There are 6 different time frames available to see in the "charts" tab.

Below is a chart of the last 8 weeks of the POTW contest:

[peanuts]

Yearly tracking and charts for each quarter

Here is the entire player performance for the full year of 2007:

Here is the entire player performance chart for the first quarter:

Here is the entire player performance chart for the second quarter:

Here is the entire player performance chart for the third quarter:

Here is the entire player performance chart for the forth quarter:

[Karel]

This site, and especially the POTW thread, is extremely slow, and I know its not me... I've got a super speedy connection, and no other sites give me problems.

Mr Market, Karel, Richard.... Help!

I just read up on this thread, and I see no problems. How slow is slow? The pages come up in under five seconds, and I am at the other side of the pond. Sometimes the server is slow, but that could be maintenance, or spidering by Google or others.

(Click the link, we are first on the page! $$$Mr.Market$$$ is HUGE!!!)

Regards,

Karel

[riverbabe]

Karel, POTW is really really slow to come up. It can take a minute or more.(Just another voice) River

[Karel]

This is boring. I tried Browzar (I generally use Firefox) and it took a long time. Then I tried Internet Explorer, and it took just seconds (but Browzar uses the Internet Explorer engine, so there might be some caching effect). I really don't know what it is.

Regards,

Karel

[peanuts]

I just read up on this thread, and I see no problems. How slow is slow? The pages come up in under five seconds, and I am at the other side of the pond. Sometimes the server is slow, but that could be maintenance, or spidering by Google or others.

(Click the link, we are first on the page! $$$Mr.Market$$$ is HUGE!!!)

Regards,

Karel

Thanks for checking, Karel. The load rate varies for me. Sometimes it snaps to the page very fast, other times it seems to get stuck and takes greater than 10 seconds. Cussing and clicking the refresh button a couple hundred times doesn't help it load faster, either

[spikefader]

Long ZICA thanks peanuts!

[New-born baby]

Ua Short

Peanuts,
UA short for me, please.

[Adam]

Peanuts,
UA short for me, please.

Your really working aginst me NBB.....lol

[peanuts]

Week 6, Day 3

Week 6 - Jungle Safari
Day 3 - this game is easy, right?

Well, well, well... look at what we have here- let-it-ride has found a real jewel for Mr. Market. He is laughing at the rest of us while he carries lettuce (LTS) back for el Hugo's sandwich. It's a fact, Mr. Market loves lettuce; he loves everything that is green. Skiracer knows that Mr. Market can't eat his meats and cheese without a FORG, so he's got that covered, and is behind let-it-ride in second. Yes, he's got the cure! Now we know what he's got the cure for... itis. Jiesen carries the ellusive cure for the dreaded itis with him, but he can't stop yelling, "THE CURE, THE CURE, I'VE GOT THE CURE". Mr Market will surely need this cure after his mighty meal. Not far behind that crazy mouse is Pete and all of China as well as Karel, who is still carrying his HUGE PCCC

Rob can't get out of the googy mud. Sirtuck keeps forgetting his way back to Mr. Market. He's got a bad case of the giggles too, and his eyes are barely open. Who gave him the BUD anyway? Sticky has not yet recovered from the direct blow to the head by King Kong.

Spikefader dropped the ice he was carrying as it was melting, but picked up a beauty at a good price. Watch your backs, folks... if you hear footsteps, it's probably him. Everyone else is running around in circles. Directions would have helped...

[skiracer]

Oh I don't think it will be to hard to catch Let-it-ride tomorrow or at least by Friday.

[jiesen]

holy smokes, let-it-ride! your LTS is on FIRE!