A 1-in-100 Investor

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The first 100 days in office sets the tone for any new president. Similarly, Motley Fool CAPS keeps an eye on how well investors do in their first 100 days. Some of our best -- we call them All-Stars -- have achieved scores of 100 on stock selections in their first days on CAPS. In this column, we're looking at our best players who made some of their best selections early on and seeing which stocks they think will be best next.

One of our highest-rated CAPS members is Gtrinvestor, with a 99.98 member rating. A member since November 2006, Gtrinvestor now has 92 active picks on CAPS out of almost 1,000 stock picks made. While achieving 83% accuracy, Gtrinvestor has attracted 405 "groupies" -- CAPS players who've listed this investor as one of their favorites.

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

Stock

CAPS Rating  (5 max)

Call

Price*

Current Score

AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN)

****

Outperform

$33.77

18.03

Borders Group (NYSE: BGP)

**

Underperform

$1.95

(9.45)

Endeavor Power

*

Underperform

$1.69

0.74

Nam Tai Electronics (NYSE: NTE)

****

Outperform

$4.16

(0.72)

NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX)

*****

Outperform

$23.64

11.23

Pharmaceutical Product Development (Nasdaq: PPDI)

*****

Outperform

$19.38

(2.81)

SkyTerra Communications

*

Underperform

$2.65

(3.43)

Switch & Data Facilities (Nasdaq: SDXC)

***

Outperform

$11.16

2.98

Under Armour (NYSE: UA)

***

Outperform

$23.84

(14.82)

Source: Motley Fool CAPS; *Price when call was made. Current score is how many points by which a member is beating (lagging) the S&P 500 index from the time of the call.

Let's take a look at what other CAPS members are saying about some of these stocks and whether they agree with this member's assessment.

Degree of risk
The books might look the same lined up in neat rows on the shelves, but Borders Group is undergoing a massive overhaul. Senior managers were swapped out and there's a new executive who specializes in turnarounds, while the board of directors itself will include a raft of new faces.

Not all investors think the new management team will succeed. CAPS All-Star tenmiles says he's not sold on the changes.

Turning the page on Borders after recent run, as not confident Ron Marshall can work the magic on this one. Company is trying to improve its inventory efficiency, but with sales declines, competitive pressures and ugly debt/equity profile, not convinced it will survive. Chapter 11 reorg under business, non-fiction section could easily be in the cards in 2010.

Even exchange
Regulators are hoping to protect investors trading derivatives in case of a collapse like the one with Lehman Brothers by forcing them to clear trades through one of the five central clearinghouses. Then they could reclaim collateral for contracts cleared. The discussion has been helping those clearinghouses, especially NYSE Euronext, because clearing the contracts would force dealers to engage with all of them, thus promoting competition. And NYSE Euronext should pick up revenue.

Another All-Star, TMFKopp, admits there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the exchange, but that the long-term opportunities outweigh that risk.

Like elsewhere, lots of question marks in the near term, but I like the potential for the company to continue to develop, grow, and change with the financial industry and continue to be a leader in the exchange industry.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest members in the CAPS investor intelligence community have made their mark. It pays to start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made -- all from a stock's CAPS page.

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?

Love this article? Get our best articles delivered direct to your inbox at no cost. Sign up for Foolwatch Weekly by entering your email below.

NYSE Euronext and Under Armour are Motley Fool Rule Breakers recommendations. Pharmaceutical Product Development is a Stock Advisor recommendation. Nam Tai Electronics is a Global Gains selection. Under Armour is a Motley Fool Hidden Gems pick, and the Fool owns shares of Under Armour. Try any of our Foolish newsletters today, free for 30 days.

Fool contributor Rich Duprey does not have a financial position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. You can see his holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

  • Report this Comment On May 26, 2009, at 1:21 PM, xjohnqx wrote:

    NTE - Outperform is a POOR POOR call and it is understandable CURRENT SCORE IS LAGGING.

    THE COMPANY IS EVAPORATING. It is poorly managed in a very tough industry. A DISASTER!!!!!

    In the past year most of the management has resigned - CEO (Japanese), CFO and acting CFO and many moor. The founder Mr. Koo is back and he is so old he will drop dead any day now.

    Rev / Workforce is near half of what it was - Ave Quarterly Rev for 2007 was around $200m; 2008 Ave was down to $150m but Q4 was $169M; now Q1 2009 down to $102 which is y-t-y down 31% and sequentially down close to 40%. TCA segment is hit but CECP seems to be evaporating down to $35M revenue which looks to be about half of what it was last quarter. Even the GP% which had gotten to over 14% is now down to 7% and the company is running at a loss. The company has to be hit further on margin when their expansion project - Wuxi comes on and I think the GP% will further deteriorate by 1-2% just for the additional depreciation. Looks like gone are the days of leading the industry in profitability.

    They can't even execute a simple privatization of their HK listing at a significant price premium. It seems that not only did the company pick the wrong process (Tendor Offer (90% acceptance required) versus Scheme of Arrangements (only 75% acceptance required but not more than 10% negative)) but they designed / executed the tendor offer process very poorly. How embarrassing that the company announced that they "do not intend to extend the offer" signed by the chairman and reviewed thoroughly by the board (SFC states that this a clear reason why they did not allow the extension of time to get to the 90%) and now they continue to try to get an extension as per the Q1 '09 announcement. However, there is a glimmer of hope here as they just got approval to extend the date of the offer such the company can attempt to get over 90% acceptance - it would mean, all else being equal, a 20% plus up tick in EPS.

    In addition, the company is attempting to hide in the face of extremely poor business results. There is total lack of transparency. At the end of 2008 the company stopped its quarterly conference calls. It is moving its Annual General Meeting from NY, USA to Vancouver, Canada. There is only one analyst that seems to cover the company. There is no place to ask questions outside of taking a trip to China and demanding an audience with management. The Board should be ashamed. I hope someone launches a class action lawsuit against the company to get some answers.

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Related Tickers

2/10/2010 11:07 AM
BGP $1.29 Down -0.02 -1.53%
Borders Group, Inc… CAPS Rating: *
PPDI $21.10 Up +0.07 +0.33%
Pharmaceutical Pro… CAPS Rating: *****
UA $24.55 Down -0.30 -1.21%
Under Armour, Inc. CAPS Rating: ****
NYX $24.25 Up +0.60 +2.54%
NYSE Euronext CAPS Rating: *****
NTE $4.32 Down -0.09 -2.04%
Nam Tai Electronic… CAPS Rating: *****
AZN $44.03 Down -0.08 -0.18%
AstraZeneca plc (A… CAPS Rating: ****
SDXC $17.47 Down -0.08 -0.46%
Switch & Data Faci… CAPS Rating: *

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