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