A 1-in-100 Investor

• Email
• Share
• Print

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. Newly appointed executives are often expected to affect substantial change, if not realize greater shareholder value, within the first 100 days.

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 first year we tracked them, 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 investors is LBStarling2 who sports a nearly perfect 99.97 player rating. A player since July 2007, LBStarling2 currently has 197 active picks on CAPS out of 320 stock picks made. Achieving 77% accuracy, LBStarling2 has also attracted 64 "groupies," CAPS players who've listed this leading investor as one of their favorites.

Here are a few of this top player's most recent stock selections and how they were rated.

Stock	CAPS Rating (5 Max)	Call	Price*	Current Score
Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR)	***	Outperform	$82.47	21.38
Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq: ENER)	***	Outperform	$66.89	12.22
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)	****	Outperform	$104.49	(1.65)
priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN)	**	Outperform	$126.64	2.17
Sohu.com (Nasdaq: SOHU)	****	Outperform	$91.00	(5.50)

Source: Motley Fool CAPS. Current score is how many points a player is beating (lagging) the S&P500 index from the time of the call.
*Price when call was made.

Heating up the future
Energy Conversion Devices hopes its amorphous silicon thin-film solar-panel technology will supplant polysilicon panels, which currently make up 90% of the market. In contrast, First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) makes thin-film panels sans silicon, using a combination of cadmium and tellurium.

Yet Energy Conversion company has two other components that make it an interesting play nonetheless. Energy Conversion is developing rechargeable NiMH batteries for hybrid vehicles and various consumer devices. It is also a partial owner, with Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), of memory-technology company Ovonyx, whose phase-change memory devices may someday replace current flash-memory technology.

CAPS All-Star kingkamehameha finds that the greater ease of installation of its solar panels makes it an excellent solar play. Our player also notes that after a long drought, Energy Conversion has finally posted a quarterly profit.

Energy Conversion Devices recently announced a blow out quarter and is now profitable. Solar energy panels are flexible and therefore easier to use in construction. Amorphous silicon technology is also cheaper than polysilicon.

Name your profit?
A company dependent on the travel industry, as Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation priceline.com is, is likely to have its share of woes these days. As more airlines buckle under the weight of soaring energy prices, the ability to continue prospering seems limited for those who travel in their wake. That's one of the reasons behind CAPS investor SpookySabra's expectation that the online travel site will slide.

Overvalued, surprised it hasn't followed the airlines down the tubes. I have traded [Priceline] for years in my real portfolio and wouldn't touch it right now. Crossed below 50 day [moving average], 10 day headed towards the 50 day where it will either bounce or pierce it downwards. As you can guess, I am betting on a pierce. We will see.

The weakening economy also means that people who do travel will want to get the best possible return for their money, and getting cheap fares and rooms could play a big part in making that happen. We will see, indeed.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest players in the CAPS investor-intelligence community have made their mark, but have we heard from you? As hockey great Wayne Gretzky once noted, you miss 100% of the shots you never take. At Motley Fool CAPS every investor's opinion counts. It's free to sign up, so why not use this opportunity to take your best shot?