2020 , a new year and decade and a list of selected stocks to get you started. Put a 20% money market fund base in first, then pick some stocks.

2020, moving to a bold new decade trying to figure out where to find value in these stock markets. I came up with a "diversified list of stocks that I feel have the best chance to give the highest total return including their dividend and that also provide you a margin of safety by either being really cheap or really "market tested" good". I am also suggesting this year that you put 20% of your funds in Money Market to be available for purchasing opportunities that will arise in what is expected to be a very volatile market year.

 Occidental Petroleum - (OXY) a merger asset value play

I had grouped stocks together in 4 groups of 4 stocks last year and it worked out really well so I am doing it again for the 2020 picks. I think an overriding theme this year  is ,"Quality and Opportunity" , with a fairly "Case-hardened" list of stock picks.

Group A
___________

Occidental Petroleum (Symbol OXY)
Boot Barn Holdings Inc. (Symbol BOOT)
Waste Management Inc. (Symbol WM)
Phillip Morris International Inc. (Symbol PM)

Group B 
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Paypal (Symbol PYPL)
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Symbol GS)
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (Symbol GT)
Progressive Insurance (Symbol PGR)

Group C
___________

Eli Lilly (Symbol LLY)
Nestle S.A. (Symbol NSRGY)
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. - B shares (Symbol BRK.B)
Timken Co. (Symbol TKR)

Group D
___________

Adobe Systems (Symbol ADBE)
Levi Strauss & Co. (Symbol LEVI)
Medtronic PLC (Symbol MDT)
Mylan Labs (Symbol MYL) -  ***(Merging with Pfizer's Upjohn division to form new company, "Viatris")

Those are my picks after about 5 revisions. I wanted to make sure that each pick was worthy to stand on its own.

I love these Memes with the cat! They were the best thing from 2019, aside from my stock picks!

I hope that 2020 brings you a healthy, happy and prosperous new year. I am making these picks on 12/30/2019, but the clock will start 01/01/2020 for calculating returns. 

This is the 11th year of Freewilly's Stockpicker Blog and my hopes are that these are my best suggested picks ever. As always, contact your licensed financial advisor to go over any investments you are going to make to be sure that they are appropriate for your particular financial situation. 

All the best.....  Freewilly

It is time to recap how I did on my 2019 Value stock picks. Blackstone (BX) lead the way with a 79.91% YTD gain

Dow Jones Industrial Average 28,135.28  Week of 12/13/2019 
S & P 500 3168.80

It is that time of year when I review how my 2019 stock picks did that I made at the beginning of the year.  I have been doing this for a number of years, however no year has ever done as well as this year. I broke the stock picks into four groups A-B-C and D with 4 stocks in each. 
      The top winner of all groups this year was Blackstone (BX) run by Stephen Allen Schwarzman an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. Blackstone which switched this year from being a REIT to becoming a Corporation killed this year with a 79.91% YTD gain. (He also gave you a truckload of dividends and I actually owned this one). 

Stephen Allen Schwarzman

Stephen is a graduate of Abington High School in Pennsylvania and his township actually borders with the township I live in. Even with such high returns he is a very conservative investor and is always guarding against undo risk in Blackstone's investments. 

So next I will give you the list of the 4 groups and their capital gains returns. There are no guarantees that I can do this again next year!!!

Group A

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA:NYSE) - Up 49.49%

United Rentals Inc (URI:NYSE) - Up 58.72%

Citizens Financial Group Inc (CFG:NYSE) - Up 34.95%

Altria Group Inc (MO:NYSE) - Up 1.56 % ( Altria had diversified into Juul and Cronos (Cannabis) and has written down $4 Billion of the investment.

Group B

Alphabet Class A (GOOGL:NASDAQ) - UP 28.89%

Capital One Financial Corp (COF:NYSE) - Up 38.07%

Penn Virginia Corp (PVAC:NASDAQ) - Down (51.37%)

AT&T Inc (T:NYSE) - Up 34.06%

Group C

Whirlpool Corp (WHR:NYSE) Up 38.88%

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (BMY:NYSE)/Celgene Corp (CELG:NASDAQ) (Merger) - Up 22.78%

FedEx Corp (FDX:NYSE)  - Up 2.69%

Intel Corp (INTC:NASDAQ)- Up 23.14%

Group D

Micron Technology Inc (MU:NASDAQ) - Up 61.36%

Oshkosh Corp (OSK:NYSE) - Up 48.46%

ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc (ZTO:NYSE) - Up 36.26%

Blackstone Group LP (BX:NYSE) - Up 79.91%

My biggest loser Penn Virginia, (symbol PVAC), actually has a PE of 1.5 and a Return on Equity of 70.30%! Unfortunately it is in Wall street's hated sector of Natural Gas and is shorted by funds along with my Gulfport Energy, (stock symbol GPOR), that was one of my picks earlier in the year. I would wait one more year before investing in this group. (too early!)

If you merge all the numbers together overall I had a 31.74 gain average return and that beat the S&P 500. I used the cutoff date of 12/13/2019 to calculate all returns.

I apologize for the small number of post this year. It was frankly difficult to post value stocks that had a good margin of safety at the current prices.  I would recommend working towards a 25% money market base in your accounts in 2020, (cash not bonds), and then invest the rest in good quality value stocks. I should have my 2020 picks posted in a few weeks.

 31.74% Gain, not too shabby. Hope 2020 brings sunny skies!

Have a wonderful and joyous holiday season.  Please stay tuned for my 2020 stock picks.

Freewilly