Friday, December 22, 2017

The recap of the 2017 stock picks from the beginning of the year. Equal weighting of these 11 stocks would have brought you in a 56.82% gain (12/20 cutoff date). Also a historic milepost - Blog # 300

Dow Jones Industrial Average 24,754.06 (U) Week Ending 12/22/2017
S & P 500 Index - 2683.34 (UP)


"If you don't lose money, most of the remaining alternatives are good ones!" 

Joel Greenblatt, Gotham Capital



Well it's that time of year again , when we review the blog stock picks from the beginning of the year to see how my prognostications ended up. It was a fabulous year with  8 of my 11 picks being on the ++ plus side. There was one big loser and 5 big winners.

 If you purchased equal parts of each of the eleven stocks I listed, your gains for the year, not including some good dividends, would have been 56.82%. I can live with that!




Here are the results:  

Lending Tree (symbol TREE)                     Up  233.05%  YTD
Align Technologies (symbol ALGN)           Up 143.06% YTD
Activision Blizzard (symbol ATVI)             Up 78.29% YTD
Lennar Corporation (symbol LEN              Up 45.73% YTD
Skyworks Solutions Inc. (symbol SWKS)   Up 30.50% YTD



Amgen Corp. (symbol AMGN)                  Up 21.13% YTD
The Blackstone Group LP (symbol BX)   Up 18.35% YTD
 Goodyear Tire Company (symbol GT)     Up 5.02% YTD



and the losers......

CVS Health Corporation  (symbol CVS)  Down (6.78)% YTD
INSYS Therapeutics (symbol INSY)          Down (21.74)% YTD
Under Armour Inc. (symbol UAA)             Down (47.78)% YTD

It has been a year of great learning and studying of the wide spectrum of ideas on Value investing from the many great minds that express their ideas about it. The Google forums with Value investors on YouTube have been particularly helpful. And I would be remiss to not mention the book that is a guiding light to me,  John Heins and Whitney Tilson's, "The Art of Value Investing", which I keep on my bed side table like a bible. Incredible thoughts on the subject.

I am a much better investor now then I was just one year ago. I wish that I had more time to write blogs weekly, but Value investing ideas take time and patience, so it is not really necessary to write weekly. We are blessed to have such wonderful resources available. This is Blog #300 for me since 2009, so it has been a learning and growing experience. I hope that it has been helpful to you.





Next blog will be my Value stock picks for 2018

Until then have a happy and healthy holiday season and a great new year.

Freewilly  - Blog # 300 - 12/22/2017