A 1-in-100 Investor

The first 100 days in office set 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 100 days on CAPS. In this column, we're looking at our best members who made some of their best stock selections early on and seeing which ones they think will be best next.

One of our highest rated CAPS members is jgknot, who sports a top 97.87 member rating. A member since May 2007, jgknot currently has 205 active picks on CAPS out of 1,629 stock picks made. Achieving 59% accuracy, jgknot has also attracted two "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.

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

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

Degree of risk
Like Warren Buffett, you may believe that an investment in railroads is an investment in America. Alas, Buffett's buyout of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE:BNI) removes one of your better opportunities from the market. Instead, consider betting on KMG Chemicals, which manufactures the creosote that's used to preserve railroad ties, the lumber holding the rails together. It's the principal supplier of the chemical in the U.S.

KMG's creosote segment accounted for 35% of its revenue in fiscal 2009; railroad companies' purchases of wood crossties have been at the top of their historic range in recent years. Only KMG's specialty chemicals business, which serves the semiconductor industry, generates a greater share of sales. The company also remains the only domestic manufacturer of penta, the chemical used to treat telephone poles for utilities.

CAPS member JimVanMeerten just blogged that favorable technical indicators suggest KMG Chemical will continue to advance -- as does its significant popular support:

As always I look to see what Wall Street thinks about the stock - I don't want to purchase a stock that's being trashed. Only one analyst follows this stock David Yuschak and he rates it a strong buy. He looks for an 8% increase in sales and a 16.7% increase in EPS.

Over on Motley Fool the CAPS members think the stock will outperform the market by a 205 to 19 vote with the All Stars voting 43 to 7. Their Wall Street players vote 2 to 0.

KMG has certainly been on a run lately, more than tripling in value so far this year, and up more than 500% over the past 12 months. If you think the specialty chemicals producer can keep riding the rails of success, let us know on KMG Chemical's CAPS page.

Shop till you drop
Did you take advantage of the Cyber Monday sales promotions earlier this week? Me neither. But according to Coremetrics, consumers did spend $180 million that day, up 8% from the year before. That bit of retail fiction -- a few years back, an industry trade group invented the hoopla that the Monday after Black Friday was the big day for online Christmas sales -- at least gives online retailers something to rally around. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) was the big winner this year, with sales jumping 47%, according to Mercent.

Yet every day seems like Cyber Monday for MercadoLibre, the Latin American equivalent of eBay. The auction upstart has posted 17 consecutive quarters of double- and triple-digit growth.

CAPS member donsguesswork is impressed with the Argentinean online merchant's ability to post torrid growth numbers:

Meli provides an online marketplace and electronic payment service for Latin America via mercadolibre.com. annual earnings growth 229%, debt 3%, ROE 19%. Last quarter sale 26% eps 79%.

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?