Recs

6

A 1-in-100 Investor

Just as 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 -- 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 our leading members, to see who made some of their best stock selections early on and find out which stocks they think will be the next good bets.

One of our highest-rated CAPS members is gembree, who sports a top 99.98 member rating. A member since January 2007, gembree currently has 188 active picks on CAPS, out of 680 stock picks made. Achieving 84% accuracy, gembree has attracted 54 "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

Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI  )

*****

Underperform

$11.17

(7.43)

Corinthian Colleges (Nasdaq: COCO  )

*

Underperform

$15.42

(2.07)

H&Q Health care Investors

***

Outperform

$10.55

0.77

iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (NYSE: FXI  )

***

Underperform

$41.74

(0.67)

Opentable (Nasdaq: OPEN  )

*

Underperform

$27.75

(8.75)

Raser Technologies (NYSE: RZ  )

*

Underperform

$2.04

(6.95)

Sulphco (NYSE: SUF  )

*

Underperform

$1.55

(21.12)

Source: Motley Fool CAPS. *Price when call was made. Current score is 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 a few of these stocks and whether they agree with this leading player's assessment.

Degree of risk
The gaming industry looks like it's succumbing to the T-virus from Resident Evil and slowly rotting from within. Video-game hardware, software, and accessories tumbled by 29% in July, which is now the fifth consecutive month in which sales have fallen. The steepest drop was recorded in the hardware sector, which fell by 37%, no doubt as gamers await price cuts for systems and the large numbers of games expected to debut next month.

Although Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS  ) and Nintendo owned the top 10 best-selling games for last month, EA is still hurting and needs something to help it power up. In comparison, Activision Blizzard, which didn't have a single title in the best-selling list, looks as if it received the T-virus antidote, as World of Warcraft continues to charge up roughly one-third of its revenues.

CAPS member duke0777 thinks Activision will make it to the next level, but not before having to fight off more trouble.

Careful. This is a great company with great potential. There has been a delay in the new [StarCraft II] game, however leaving their 2009 schedule very very light. they're most like going to report disappointing earnings for 2009. In 2010 however, look for this to really take off, if they manage to release the version of [StarCraft], plus the new version of [Diablo].

Activision Blizzard has matched the CAPS Videogames sector performance over the past month, with both rising nearly 7%, though they've lagged the market's 12% gain. But the video-game industry still might be the one industry your portfolio must have.

A generic concern
While the recession was taking hit points from the gaming industry, it completely walked out on the check for restaurants. Fine-dining eateries have seen sales fall by 14% so far this year, while family-style chains have dropped by 6%. Even as successful as McDonald's has been with its value-meal value proposition, it hasn't been enough for fast-food chains to ward off a 2% decline year-to-date.

So getting people into the restaurant has become a top priority, and that's where OpenTable has been able to help. The online-reservation service went public before the summer, and its first earnings report offered up some appetizing morsels for the potential it holds, particularly if the recession is ending -- as so many are hoping.

The CAPS community hasn't been kind to the service, though, with two-thirds of the members rating OpenTable thinking it ends up in the kitchen washing dishes. Highly rated member finabuddy finds the service superfluous.

Its a buy IF you believe the revenue multiple or whatever DCF the roadshow was selling. Its a buy IF you believe the growth story. Its a buy if you think the cute 19 year old host girl at a restaurant is too dumb to manage the reservation system and needs opentable's fancifully described "electronic reservation book (ERB), an integrated software and hardware solution that computerizes restaurant host-stand operations". Maybe [I'm] jaded by my cold cynical heart, but I [don't] believe in this stock for CAPS and certainly not for any of my investment dollars.

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?

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OpenTable is a Motley Fool Rule Breakers selection. Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts are Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

Fool contributor Rich Duprey has no financial position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. You can see his holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


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Related Tickers

2/13/2012 4:00 PM
OPEN $44.31 Down -0.06 -0.14%
OpenTable CAPS Rating: *
ATVI $12.25 Down -0.08 -0.61%
Activision Blizzar… CAPS Rating: ****
FXI $39.42 Up +0.49 +1.26%
iShares FTSE/Xinhu… CAPS Rating: **
RZ $0.00 Down +0.00 +0.00%
Raser Technologies… CAPS Rating: *
COCO $5.11 Up +0.12 +2.30%
Corinthian College… CAPS Rating: **
EA $17.49 Up +0.07 +0.40%
Electronic Arts CAPS Rating: ***

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