Announcing the enhanced 2026 Pick of the Year contest! Now with scrubbing bubbles!!

[BlueWolf]

And they’re off! In 1st place we have Jiesen’s PMRTY, in 2nd is Massimo’s ACMIF, and in 3rd is my pick NXT. We’re kind of off to a rough start as the markets whipped around a little, but here’s hoping the coming weeks treat us more kindly. Here’s the initial standings after the first week.

[jiesen]

I have a good feeling about JH's pick, RIOT. If PMRTY is going up 20% this year (and it will) I think RIOT could do 40% or even 60%, as Bitcoin makes its way back over 90k. HOOD should do very well, when bitcoin recovers, too.... If bitcoin hits 100k again this year, they'll both be in the top 3 for the POTY, imo. (Of course there's the equally likely scenario that bitcoin drops to 45k by the end of the year.... but we'll not consider that for the purposes of POTY!)

[BlueWolf]

It was a bit of a mixed week for the market with two of the indices up and one down. Lots of important news lately, so we’ll have to see what shakes out over the next few weeks. Anyway, here’s our leaderboard: Jiesen’s PMRTY is holding on to 1st, with Massimo’s ACMIF in 2nd, and my own pick, NXT, meekly hanging on to 3rd. Here’s the complete standings.

[BlueWolf]

Sorry about not posting last week, but my social calendar was full and the time just got away from me. Anyway, I’m back now and I bear bad news. We’re getting schlumped! Somebody took a pile driver to the markets last week and as a result we only have one stock in the green and beating the indices. This week’s bright star in 1st place is Massimo’s ACMIF. Congrats, Massimo. Jiesen’s PMRTY holds down 2nd with Golly Molly’s TSLA in 3rd. The year is young, but we sure got off to a rough start. I just hope it’s not going to be one of those years.

[BlueWolf]

Sorry about not posting last week, but my social calendar was full and the time just got away from me. Anyway, I’m back now and I bare bad news. We’re getting schlumped! Somebody took a pile driver to the markets last week and as a result we only have one stock in the green and beating the indices. This week’s bright star in 1st place is Massimo’s ACMIF. Congrats, Massimo. Jiesen’s PMRTY holds down 2nd with Golly Molly’s TSLA in 3rd. The year is young, but we sure got off to a rough start. I just hope it’s not going to be one of those years.

[antioch6]

For what it;s worth, I wanted to pick UL as my pick of the year, but I wasn't enticed enough to post it because of the high market. I was looking for a short and couldn't find anything conservative enough, for example NVDA is still a good company and reversing HOOD as louetta's pick could reverse cap the contest's gains if she is right like what happened with John henry one year (NVDA).

The only company I feel sure about is HYFM in that it is going down. They sell marijuana growth lights and I was highly specialized in that industry since I investigated the Cannibus growth culture and scene to gunpoint. It seems like marijuana either ends in sex or a gun and it is illegal still and I don't think the king would use cannibus so there is no need for HYFM. On top of that, it has all the characteristics of a bad stock, high debt, negative growth, falling stock price. A hesitation arrives when I think back on the times someone has pulled the ask up high and someone else had hit the buy at market button to pump the stock higher.

I plan on entering the contest at a lower price sometime this year, but I still haven't found a good stock besides VZ or CART. Those are slow movers so they don't make for a good contest pick anyways. The p/e's are still too high to warrant reckless buying. It has never happened to me that I went one year without finding a good stock, but it looks like this is the year. UL is a good company, but I don't think the upside in soap and consumer goods warrants a 20% penalty.

In the meantime I am buying soap from UL and ordering goods from CART, though my mom has me on Tmobile instead of VZ. I've been steadily following the markets and steadily testing out strategies in day trading. I've found a system to breakeven with confidence, and just today I think I turned positive on a system trading S&p futures with a Jesse Livermore system. I am only paper trading until December 2026 to give me enough time to develop a profitable strategy, save up money, and recover from my $25,000 dollar gold trade that I lost on. I've been in and out of mental hospitals and through domestic violence with my family all while trading the markets and trying to find a strategy that works. I have to say it is probably the hardest thing I've ever done even going through drug addicts and getting beaten bloody by a friend who has now died at 28 from a heroin I have never lost my sights on finding a way to trade stocks profitable.

I am playing tennis twice a week with my mom, and going ice skating on Saturdays and Sundays at the mall. I wake up at 3 in the morning everyday and exercise my abs. Then I clean up and get ready for my day. I shower and do laundry and the only thing left to do is have breakfast and trade the market. I base my hour on Swedish Time and ignore daylight savings (because it's for farmers). We don't need to work.

Lastly I want to thank Bluewolf for running this contest and John Henry for thinking of it and mrmarket for running the website. And to all the contestents for playing each year. I was also going to pick TSLA since louetta was gonna pick it first, but now I see that Molly has picked it allready.