A 1-in-100 Investor

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 members -- we call them All-Stars -- have achieved scores of 100 on stock selections in their first 100 days on CAPS. In this column, we look at our best members who made some of their best picks early on and see which stocks they think will be best next.

One of our highest-rated CAPS members is vierlierer, with a 90.77 member rating. This member joined in August 2006 and has 203 active picks out of 468 stock picks made. Achieving 52% accuracy, vierlierer has attracted two "groupies," CAPS members who've listed this investor as one of their favorites.

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

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 a couple of these stocks and whether they agree with this top player's assessment.

Degree of risk
The death of the DVD has been discussed for forever, it seems. Netflix was supposed to have crumbled like a brittle disc by now because streaming video, video on demand, and all sorts of other new technologies were going to supplant the humble DVD. As we've seen, Netflix is still here, still thriving.

Not that other technologies might not one day surpass movie viewing by mail, but I have a hunch we'll see these shiny discs arriving in red envelopes for years. CAPS member fundamentalsrock agrees, and not only because the company might be driving rival Blockbuster to the brink.

Barring market entry from Google, I don't see anyone who could challenge [Netflix] credibly (certainly not Apple or Microsoft). Moreover, its recommendations system is second to none, and a little known fact of this business is that good recommendations are the centerpiece of success (there are only so many "new releases" that one person will rent in a month, and those have lower profit [margins]/higher costs to Netflix). Those red boxes outside the grocery store will never compete with the vast selection and recommendations engine of netflix. This one only goes up for the foreseeable future.

Mapping out opportunity
The search for oil and gas will also continue unabated, which is good news and good business for ION Geophysical, an energy services company that maps out deposits of the resources for exploration companies. CAPS member viking122 says ION Geophysical's new joint venture is worth looking into, while mypieceofpie says the company is a step ahead of its competition.

As the limited natural resource of oil becomes harder to pull, locating substantial reserves is most important. Ion Geophysical is on the leading edge of this technology. They have recently expanded their business and have exposure to the Asian market. While reading the most recent conference call, I like some of [management's] decisions concerning debt repayment and R & D.

The deal gives the company a big influx of cash that slashes its debt load and improves its maneuverability, while also providing a worldwide platform for providing seismic data on land-based petroleum prospects.

The comments section below is a great place to make your argument either for or against ION Geophysical.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the 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. It's free to sign up, so why not use this opportunity to take your best shot?