2018 Stock Picking Contest

[winner69]

WOW...you know its been a brutally tough year in the market when the top performer of over 170 entrants is up a modest 25%.

What’s the average I wonder

No need for me look through the whole list ...Sylvester kindly posted the top 5

[Oliver Mander]

What’s the average I wonder

No need for me look through the whole list ...Sylvester kindly posted the top 5

Are you trying to say that you are 'winning" in the top 5?

The average return for the 178 entrants is a brutal 0.6%.

[Oliver Mander]

Coupe of other fixes that will appear in the next update:
1) Have fixed ARV share price on June 18th - that was causing a weird downwards spike for those of us who picked it (no change overall, just that one date)
2) Have fixed the graph to show dates properly (had not realised, sorry about that)
3) Have put the ranking column back in the webpage (for some reason, the webpage had pushed it out).

No great changes, but tidies it up a bit.

[Snoopy]

good on ya Snoopy, but would have thought he real plaudits go to those who are in 1st place!!!

From a strict perspective, viewing this as a competition on its own, you have a point. However, I don't think you would find a single investment advisor that would tell you to put all your money in the market on 1st January and pull it out on 31st December. So I prefer to look at this competition, which I must add I appreciate your hard work organizing Sylvester, as one year of a multi year strategy. I also put my money where my mouth is. So that means my competition returns are a fair representation of my actual returns over the period.

From a pure winning the competition perspective, the best strategy would be to pick your five hottest growth shares as your entry. But in the competition there is no actual loss risk to fictional capital. So I suspect many of the high performing entries bear very little reality to the shares those punters actually hold. Good on them for 'winning'. But winning a competition with a fictional entry is of no interest at all to me. I do find the competition very useful for keeping track of my portfolio through the year though!

This is all about learning. If you blow your own trumpet, you're closing your mind off to the possibility that others might have better ideas in terms of their investment selections.

Not at all. I am happy to hear other peoples ideas. But most stick in their competition entries and we fellow entrants are none the wiser as to what the strategy behind the picks is. If you go back to my entry I think I did explain why I picked what I did in advance.

What's the old saying...pride before a fall? I like to say that hubris prevents learning as well.

I have put up my performance, which I am happy with. If others have done better over the six years, then they are very welcome to paint their own picture.

SNOOPY

[Oliver Mander]

Wrong. So wrong. A loss cannot exceed the input. A total loss is 100%, No more. ( unless, as you say, you add to input. Which is not happening here. )
Statistics makes monkeys of many people. One of my pet hates, because is happens often, is the political polls when reported by
the media chooks, is a statement along the lines off " the xyz party is polling below the margin of error ". Must have failed math
at school ( and off sick for stats class ) hence became a journo.

"It makes no difference in terms of your individual "picks portfolio" though"
is simply not true. a non existent additional loss is added. In this case -8%

Regardless of the philosophy...(and we defintely agree that its only if you put more in!)...

The actual way the picks portfolios are calculated is on actual value on the portfolio - I've checked. So its comparing a total with a total and giving a percentage difference. Its NOT trying to "weight" the %age difference of -108%! So in your case...

- you started with $10k
- your total return, including dividends, is -$875.72
- your %age difference is -8.75% for the first 11 months of the year
- if you kept losing $ at that rate, your annualised loss is 9.5%.

So that's what i mean when i say the actual calculation, and your ranking, is correct as it is based on actual values.
Of course, at the end of the year, the annualised value and the actual return become the same figure anyway.

Enter username		greater fool				Overall Rank	135	out of	170
	Share	Weight	Initial Investment	Shares	Open price	Close price	Close Investment	Dividends received	Rights Issue value	Total $ Return	%age	annualised %age
Pick 1	CBL	20%	$2,000	657.89	$3.040	$0.001	$1	$0.00	$0.00	-$1,999.34	-100.0%	-108.6%
Pick 2	MCK	20%	$2,000	732.60	$2.730	$3.040	$2,227	$43.96	$0.00	$271.06	13.6%	14.7%
Pick 3	NWF	20%	$2,000	13,698.63	$0.146	$0.155	$2,123	$0.00	$0.00	$123.29	6.2%	6.7%
Pick 4	OCA	20%	$2,000	1,904.76	$1.050	$1.140	$2,171	$89.52	$0.00	$260.95	13.0%	14.2%
Pick 5	SPK	20%	$2,000	550.96	$3.630	$4.230	$2,331	$137.74	$0.00	$468.32	23.4%	25.4%
			$10,000				$8,853	$271.22	$0.00	-$875.72	-8.8%	-9.5%

[Oliver Mander]

Updated results for December 14th now available.
I have taken into account greater fools comments above - so the loss on an individual share limited to 100% for the annualised percentage, and the portfolio annualised return %age adjusted accordingly. It makes no difference on Dec 31st, but its a fair enough change to make in the context of not tipping in more capital...

And yes - we have yet another new leader!! Well done VR, return of close to 30% looking pretty good! Of interest is...
- Craig's Investment Partners is in 8th place, a long way ahead of other Broker's picks.
- Our average this year is an eye-watering MINUS 1%!!!

Username	Pick 1	Pick 2	Pick 3	Pick 4	Pick 5	Opening Investment	Closing Investment	add Dividends	add Rights Issue	TOTAL $ RETURN	TOTAL %AGE	TOTAL Annualised %age	Rank
Vr	PLX	AIR	ATM	WHS	MVN	$10,000	$12,416	$437	$0	$2,853	28.5%	29.8%	1
RGR367	ATM	BLT	OHE	RAK	SKO	$10,000	$12,304	$0	$0	$2,304	23.0%	24.0%	2
Pending	PPH	ATM	SKO	IKE	WDT	$10,000	$12,283	$0	$0	$2,283	22.8%	23.8%	3
chinesekiwi	OCA	VGL	PLX	ARV	FNZ	$10,000	$11,846	$262	$0	$2,108	21.1%	22.0%	4
t.rexjr	IKE	NTL	RBC	SKO	TWR	$10,000	$11,811	$0	$0	$1,811	18.1%	18.9%	5

Full results are available ont he usual website...https://sites.google.com/view/sharet...icks-2018/home

[Beagle]

What a tough year...medium return for spot 85 is just 0.1%. Top quartile starts at position 42 at just 7.3% total return.

[winner69]

What a tough year...medium return for spot 85 is just 0.1%. Top quartile starts at position 42 at just 7.3% total return.

Sort of returns one expects when you buy a market that’s ridiculously overvalued — history shows buy when PEs are high (market and individual stocks) future returns always disappoint. That’s how markets go.

Median return 0.1% is pretty good in these circumstances

NZX50 PE still higher than at beginning of year even though earnings trend not looking too good. That doesn’t bode well for 2019 does it

[winner69]

SHARETRADER TOP 5 shows a pretty dismal oerformance considering how we all think we are so great etc etc etc

What do they say about the collective wisdom of crowds (the wise ones)?

[Beagle]

Sort of returns one expects when you buy a market that’s ridiculously overvalued — history shows buy when PEs are high (market and individual stocks) future returns always disappoint. That’s how markets go.

Median return 0.1% is pretty good in these circumstances

NZX50 PE still higher than at beginning of year even though earnings trend not looking too good. That doesn’t bode well for 2019 does it

No its pretty ominous. We are fortunate in N.Z. to have a high dividend yield by international standards and a good imputation system which allows the selection of a number of defensive high yield shares with the aim to achieve a top quartile return like that 7.3% without the need for capital gain.