A 1-in-100 Investor

Presidents are often measured by what they achieve in their first 100 days in office. Schools have parties for students on the 100th day of the school year. When Jerry Yang returned to Yahoo! last summer, he gave himself 100 days to effect change at the online portal.

Around here at Motley Fool CAPS, we keep an eye on the 100-day mark, too. Some of our best investors -- we call them All-Stars -- have achieved top player ratings after garnering a score of 100 in their first 100 days on CAPS. Analysis has shown that the top-rated stocks have had the best performance over the past year, so might we assume that when the best players rate the best stocks, there is a correlation as well?

One of our highest rated CAPS investor is alvinbentley, who sports a near-perfect 99.95 player rating. A player since April 2007, alvinbentley currently has 193 active picks on CAPS out of more than 720 stock picks made. Achieving better than 71% accuracy, alvinbentley has also attracted 34 "groupies," CAPS players who've listed this leading investor as one of their favorites.

Here are a few of the most recent stock selections and how they were rated:

A mutually exclusive opportunity
Over the past month, alvinbentley has been both bearish and bullish in nearly equal measure, giving the nod to a number of mining and energy companies. It's easy to understand why an underperform rating was given to UBS, for example, considering that after the Bear Stearns debacle the investment broker was also at risk of imploding over its exposure to the U.S. subprime mortgage market.

Another of alvinbentley's picks is Harvest Energy Trust, which has been likened to a chimera; it exhibits the characteristics of many beasts but apparently excels at being all of them at once.

Although smaller than some of its rivals, investors such as top-rated CAPS All-Star ddberg like the multifaceted composite of Harvest Energy.

The perks of a Canadian royalty trust (double-digit dividend yield), with the added benefit of diversification in that HTE operates in the refining and marketing areas, not just exploration and extraction. Small compared to some of the behemoths (PWE, PGH). But a very solid player in an industry that stands to generate some serious cash (especially for unit holders) with oil prices at all-time highs and natural gas prices heading north.

Similarly, CAPS player jep2224 finds any downside to its structure has been covered while there remains unlimited upside potential.

Book value/Share around $20 and currently trades around $27.50. Add to that a dividend yield of about 17%, which when compounded (via DRIP) returns over 60% of the stock's value by 2011 when the Canadian tax laws change. Even in the worst case scenario - if the tax law change in 2011 remains as unfavorable as it is now - this stock has much of the drop built in, and the law could be revised as lots of Canadians are unhappy with Harper and Flaherty. As a nice bonus, the dividend is denominated in Canadian dollars so a weaker dollar doesn't erode the value of our hard earned dividends. Any potential downside should be just about covered and any upside is gravy.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest players in the CAPS investor intelligence community have sown their opinion on Harvest Energy, but we haven't heard yet from you.

As hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." At Motley Fool CAPS every investor's opinion counts, and since it's free to sign up, why not use this opportunity to take your best shot?