The Century Mark

Presidents are often measured by what they achieve during 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?

We're going to highlight a few of the recent stock picks made by these CAPS investors who've reached the 100-in-100 milestone and then zero in on those stocks that the rest of the CAPS community thinks have the greatest potential. It's like the use of investor intelligence that the CAPS team is putting to work in the new Fool Intel surveys.

This week we're going to look at one of our highest-rated CAPS players, TDRH, who sports a 100.00 player rating. A player since October 2006, TDRH has 109 active picks on CAPS, but has made a total of more than 1,200 stock picks for which an accuracy rating of 82.22% has been achieved. Here are a few of TDRH's most recent stock selections and how they were rated.

Stocks are off to a rocky start this year, and that's played a role in TDRH's score on a number of these picks. Let's take a closer look at contract driller Noble, which has earned a top five-star rating on CAPS.

Noblesse oblige
With more than 60 rigs stationed around the world, Noble is one of the biggest offshore drillers around. It has an extensive backlog of rigs well into 2008 and, at the end of last year, already had 74% of this year's operating days accounted for. Noble, like others in the industry, has enjoyed the increase in dayrates, which were up 50% internationally and 25% closer to home.

More than 1,000 CAPS investors have rated Noble, and only 15 have selected it to underperform the market. In fact, it's been almost a year since someone penned a bear pitch on the company. More common have been the bulls, like CAPS player GS751, who recently weighed in on Noble and favorably noted that the contract driller has successfully put last year's abrupt resignation of its CEO behind it.

David Williams (formerly COO) [was recently appointed] as the new CEO, chairman of the board, and president. He takes over ... from William Sears, who has temporarily led Noble after the abrupt resignation of former CEO Mark Jackson late last year.

$7 billion backlog ensures a lucrative next few years, leaving Williams to focus on important details like employee retention, safety concerns, and effectively allocating capital. Fortunately, Noble has a strong track record of savvy industry moves.

Last summer, another top-rated All-Star, delphin4269, with an impressive 99.28 player rating, also noted the profitable, cash-generating potential of Noble.

Noble's business boasts a high profit margin, they have enormous cashflows, and earnings are growing at a 30-40% annual rate. Despite this rosy picture the P/E ratio is about 14. I'll take a PEG < 0.5 any day of the week. Long term this one should easily outperform the market.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest players in the 83,000-member CAPS investor-intelligence community have found Noble to be a top pick, but we haven't heard from you yet. As hockey great Wayne Gretzky once said, "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." At Motley Fool CAPS every investor's opinion counts, and since it's totally free, why not use this opportunity to take your best shot?