Last Monday, I asked each of the StreetAuthoritystock market
strategists toput into writing their assessments of the year just
passed regarding their respective advisories. What worked? What
didn't?
All of which got me to wondering about thestocks I've touted in
StreetAuthorityInsider in the past 12 months...
StreetAuthority Insider is an exclusive newsletter for paid
subscribers in good standing to one or more of the StreetAuthority
products. It's part of the package. Each week I bringInsiders
market insights from the experts at StreetAuthority, including, in
mostissues , a specificinvestment idea. Think of Insider as a
research tool.
What's fair is fair. I could hardly ask my colleagues to air
their laundry without doing the same myself.
So here's how I spent my time between bowl games this past week:
I went through the
Insider archives
, all 52 issues, to take another look at the individual stocks that
were featured in 2012.
This was not a scientific survey, but neither was it random. I
singled out only those issues that contained a clear-cut
recommendation from one or more of the StreetAuthority analysts. In
the end I had a list of 39 stocks. I then calculated the annualized
return for each of the recommendations, based on the price of the
stock on the day it was spotlighted in Insider, compared with its
close on the last day of the year.
Fully 60% of the stocks featured in Insider during 2012 were in
the green on New Year's Eve, with annualized gains ranging from
single digits to triple digits.
Not surprisingly, some of the biggest gainers -- as well as some
of the biggest disappointments -- originated with
Game-Changing Stocks
, which twice monthly ventures into the speculative realm of
aggressive growth stocks.
Profiting from the "Coca-Cola Killer"
During the holiday spending season just passed, you may have
noticed a TV advertising blitz for
SodaStream International's (Nasdaq: SODA)
soda maker -- a hundred-dollar fountain carbonator that enables
consumers to make their own soda pop. Long before that, however,
Andy Obermueller reiterated his February recommendation of SODA in
the shares spiked 26% the prior Wednesday on a report of
stronger-than-expected sales. Since then, SODA rose a further 24.3%
through the end of the year, for an annualized gain of 40.2%.
An even better Insider performer for Andy, on an annualized
basis, has been
Exact Sciences (Nasdaq: EXAS)
, a game-changer in the detection of colon cancer. When Andy
mentioned EXAS in the
November 30
Insider
, the company was trading at $9.81 a share. A month later it closed
the year nearly 8% higher at $10.59, for an annualized gain of
146.2%.
Then there's the other side of the game-changer coin.
On
February 11
, Andy recommend fledgling biofuel producer
Gevo (Nasdaq: GEVO)
, partly on the promise of production plans for a proprietary
replacement for gasoline. This fall, Gevo fell 44.4% in just two
days after unexpectedly announcing it was sending those plans back
to the drawing board.
So it goes in the quest for The Next Big Thing. The potential
rewards are huge, but so are the risks. That's precisely why Andy
staunchly recommends that aggressive growth stocks never make up
more than 20% of an investor's portfolio.
2012's Biggest Surprise
Among all the stocks covered in
Insider
in 2012, the biggest surprise for me was also the biggest winner --
courtesy of
Stock of the Month's
Amy Calistri.
After all, this was a former high-flyer that was still trading
at a fraction of its dot-com highs more than 12 years ago. It was a
company that went through four CEOs in the prior four years.
Turns out the fifth time may be the charm for
Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO)
.
Amy picked Yahoo as her August stock of the month three weeks
after the world's largest Internet portal picked 37-year-old
Marissa Mayer as its fifthCEO -- and it was largely because Yahoo
put this former Google wunderkind in charge that Amy pulled the
trigger.
At the time, Amy pointed out to her readers that a leadership
change "can absolutely transform a troubled company." By the time I
featured Yahoo in the Silicon Valley stalwart -- one
that included a focus on mobile -- and was winning rave reviews
from Wall Street .
Since Labor Day through the end of 2012, the formerly stodgy
Yahoo posted the seventh-largest gain of the 500 stocks that make
up Standard & Poor's widely followed index . Since the
Halloween edition of Insider, Yahoo rose 18.5% through year-end,
for an annualized gain of 155.9%.
| [
Note:
Here's one reason Amy's a successful investor: She plays
poker. Now, anybody can play poker... but not everyone has
played against a billionaire... or played in the World Series
of Poker... or walked away from the table with thousands of
dollars in winnings. Amy has. And it's her skills at the card
table that give Amy an edge at the trading screen. After all,
in poker, as withinvesting , you've got to know when to place
a bet... when to go all in... and when to fold.
follow this link
).] |
Scarcity Pays...
Natural resource stocks continued tounderperform the broader market
last year. The S&P 500 produced a total return (including
dividends) of 15.9% in 2012. That compares with an 8.8% increase in
the
REV Hard Assets Producers Exchange TradedFund (
HAP
)
, thebenchmark index used in StreetAuthority's Scarcity & Real
Wealth advisory.
The performances of the natural resource stocks featured in
Insider last year were mixed.
When I quoted
Scarcity & Real Wealth's
Nathan Slaughter as saying he was watching
MasTec (
MTZ
)
, shares of the natural gas pipeline contractor were trading at
just over $18 each. MTZ finished the year at $24.93, for an
annualized gain of 127.4%.
Action to take -->
As an investor, you know that no one gets it right all of the time.
But by regularly using the information in
The StreetAuthority Insider
as part of your own research, you can help tilt the odds in your
favor. The best part: There's no extra charge for this service for
as long as you remain a subscriber in good standing to any of the
StreetAuthority advisories.