If You Were to Bargain Hunt , Seriously

[billyjoe]

Mr. Market, out of the goodness of his heart, decides to spread his fortune amongst his forum members. Each member gets $50,000 with the only stipulation being a time limit of 3 days to spend it on stocks. The person with the greatest gain at the end of 3 months wins a prize that is truly priceless. Mr. Market renames his site "Mr.Market and (insert winners name) are Huge". The question is : How do you pick the stock or stocks (between 1 and 10). You can't sell a stock or buy any after the initial 3 days.

Do you use a close approximation of the Mr.Market model to make your picks?
Do you choose stocks with monster earnings swept down with declining mkt.?
Do you pick from a list hitting new highs on March 13th?
Do you pick former high flyers hitting new lows?
Do you pick from the best charts?
Do you pick stocks with the best fundies?
Or------------fill in the blanks.

-----------billyjoe

[scifos]

I would buy my Deeply Discounted screen.

[IIC]

Mr. Market, out of the goodness of his heart, decides to spread his fortune amongst his forum members. Each member gets $50,000 with the only stipulation being a time limit of 3 days to spend it on stocks. The person with the greatest gain at the end of 3 months wins a prize that is truly priceless. Mr. Market renames his site "Mr.Market and (insert winners name) are Huge". The question is : How do you pick the stock or stocks (between 1 and 10). You can't sell a stock or buy any after the initial 3 days.

Do you use a close approximation of the Mr.Market model to make your picks?
Do you choose stocks with monster earnings swept down with declining mkt.?
Do you pick from a list hitting new highs on March 13th?
Do you pick former high flyers hitting new lows?
Do you pick from the best charts?
Do you pick stocks with the best fundies?
Or------------fill in the blanks.

-----------billyjoe

Well...I don't see any price or exchange requirements here...put my whole $50 k in WLSI...it closed at .027 today

[billyjoe]

Doug,
This is entirely theoretical. Scifos' answer is an example of what I'm looking for. You could have said "I would place the entire sum of $50,000 in an equally weighted portfolio consisting of the latest IIC top 5."

-------------billyjoe

[IIC]

Doug,
This is entirely theoretical. Scifos' answer is an example of what I'm looking for. You could have said "I would place the entire sum of $50,000 in an equally weighted portfolio consisting of the latest IIC top 5."

-------------billyjoe

I could have said that...but I wouldn't do it...The IIC 100 is a list of ideas...not recommendations.

[mimo_100]

The DOW, NASDAQ, and S&P are approaching support (approximately 11950, 2340, and 1366 respectively) . I would wait until they break these levels, then buy some institutional favorites: CSCO, WMT, HD, MSFT.

[Louetta]

MTB, USG. I keep trying to buy ORCL back toward 16.5 but keep missing.

[peanuts]

good question

...

Do you use a close approximation of the Mr.Market model to make your picks?
Do you choose stocks with monster earnings swept down with declining mkt.?
Do you pick from a list hitting new highs on March 13th?
Do you pick former high flyers hitting new lows?
Do you pick from the best charts?
Do you pick stocks with the best fundies?
Or------------fill in the blanks.

-----------billyjoe

You know, Billyjoe, this is a great question. This is how I am approaching the current market:

Believe it or not, I am still bullish on the market and economy even after the last 2 weeks. The way I see it, is that the US companies that make up the stock market will continue pulling stuff out of the ground, and making stuff, and selling services, and spreading the US Dollar around to generate investment income, and they'll continue finding ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency, and basically, continue making massive amounts of money. I need stuff, it takes money to get it, and that money just gets spread around differently at different times to get that stuff to me- that's the basics of any economy.

So what I am doing now is looking for the types of companies that have proven track records over the last few years of increasing revenues (either thru new products or higher sales)- generating sales from things which will be in demand no matter what stage of the economic cycle we are currently experiencing. I want to find companies that have good management who ties their pay (or bonuses) to the performance of the stock price or operational improvements / goals. I want the stock price to follow the company and not so much the overall market. Some forward event to look towards- anything from a divided, to a stock split, to a buyout, really just anything that lets me know that company is active with its investors. Finally, I want a company with a strong balance sheet. I like low debt and lots of real assets- cash, buildings, land, proprietary infomation or patents, brand name items, whatever. The company just needs to have some kind of value to it other the the promise of profits. If something REALLY aweful happens, I don't want to be stuck with a cool website, or something even worse that nobody would want, even if you gave it to them.

On the technical aspects, I would avoid a stock trading at all time highs or lows. I would look for an entry point near a current p/e ratio that is in line with both the S&P 500, and well within the range of the average company in its own industry group. I would also like to see past year stock price performance equal to or better than the leading market indices.

Considering the above, PCU comes to mind

[mrmarket]

NFI...screaming buy!

[IIC]

Well...I don't see any price or exchange requirements here...put my whole $50 k in WLSI...it closed at .027 today

My pick screamed up 25% today and the closing ASK was another 17% above that...I'll probably be retiring at the end of the month...See 'ya in Tahiti