A 1-in-100 Investor

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

One of our highest-rated CAPS members is TDRH, who sports a top 99.99 member rating. A member since October 2006, TDRH has 111 active picks on CAPS out of almost 1,640 stock picks made. Achieving nearly 86% accuracy, TDRH has attracted 1,690 "groupies," CAPS members who've listed this leading investor as one of their favorites.

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

Stock	CAPS Rating (out of 5)	Call	Price*	Current Score
Cott (NYSE: COT)	*	Underperform	$3.80	(51.38)
Dillard's (NYSE: DDS)	*	Underperform	$9.49	2.90
Insured Municipal Income Fund	**	Outperform	$12.35	2.79
Nuveen Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio	NR	Outperform	$13.79	(0.34)
Nuveen Virginia Premium Income Municipal Fund	*****	Outperform	$14.04	2.80
Pengrowth Energy Trust (NYSE: PGH)	*****	Outperform	$7.91	8.87
Radian Group (NYSE: RDN)	**	Underperform	$2.71	(3.30)
TEPPCO Partners (NYSE: TPP)	*****	Outperform	$28.60	0.51

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

Let's look at what other CAPS members are saying about one of these stocks and whether they agree with this leading player's assessment.

Degree of risk
A surprise profit for department-store operator Dillard's helped its shares soar -- analysts had been expecting a loss -- but the gains it made during the quarter are hardly sustainable.

Dillard's has been making some steep cuts in its expenses. It closed stores, cut inventory by 18%, and reduced sales, general, and administrative costs by more than $66 million. But even then, same-store sales fell by 13%, and at least one analyst has noted that Dillard's has achieved only a single year of positive comps growth in the last nine years. That makes this company only slightly better than Sears Holdings (Nasdaq: SHLD), which hasn't been able to post a single quarter of higher comps since emerging from bankruptcy. Sears Holdings was also able to pocket a surprise profit this quarter, but that doesn't mean there are "green shoots" in retail yet.

In contrast, Kohl's (NYSE: KSS) has been able to steal market share from its rivals -- because even though it, too, is seeing comps fall as consumer spending remains cautious, the rate of decline is less than what's being experienced elsewhere.

In making his case against Dillard's, TDRH pointed to a one-time gain the department store booked as one of the reasons results were inflated. But CAPS member Rico52 sees the problem at Dillard's being more systemic -- a result of the insular control that the ruling family has over operations:

Dillards is a real heavyweight within the brick retailers, with a vast amount of their holdings in the south and southwest. Dillards needs to reduce the number of poorly operating stores and interject outside senior management to improve operating procedures and reduce family members micro-managing every aspect of their operation.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest members in the CAPS investor-intelligence community have made their mark, but 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, and since it's free to sign up, why not use this opportunity to take your best shot?