Welcome to week 127 of my stock-picking throwdown with Mr. Market. Let's get right to the numbers.
|
Company |
Starting Price* |
Recent Price |
Total Return |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Akamai |
$22.23 | $47.75 | 114.8% |
|
Harris & Harris |
$6.22 | $5.09 | (18.2%) |
| IBM | $123.46** | $159.21 | 28.9% |
| Oracle | $22.37** | $32.00 | 43.0% |
| Taiwan Semiconductor | $9.35** | $13.11 | 40.2% |
| AVERAGE RETURN | -- | -- | 41.74% |
| S&P 500 SPDR | $120.57** | $127.72 | 5.93% |
| DIFFERENCE | -- | -- | 35.81 |
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
*Tracking began on Aug. 7, 2008.
**Adjusted for dividends and other returns of capital.
Put another tally on my side of the scorecard. A turbulent week in the stock market hurt Mr. Market more than it did my five tech stocks.
The crisis in Egypt helped create the roller coaster, but it was Ford's lackluster fourth-quarter report that gave it speed. The automaker's shares sold off more than 13% after the company badly missed earnings estimates. A broad sell-off followed.
For the week, the S&P 500 fell by 0.55% while the Nasdaq ended off 0.10%. The Dow 30 also fell, down by 0.41%. Of the major indices, only the small-cap Russell 2000 closed with the week with a gain, up by 0.29%, according to CNBC data.
Clinical Data
The week in tech
Several of the digital world's top stocks enjoyed nice rallies of their own, but not because of breakthroughs. Consolidation fueled the week's biggest tech gains.
On Friday, Verizon announced a $1.4 billion cash bid to acquire data-center specialist Terremark Worldwide
Not surprisingly, the buyout fueled speculation elsewhere. Shares of Terremark peer Rackspace Hosting
There's logic to the buying. Verizon and AT&T have at times struggled to keep pace with the demands of mobile-data consumers, and adding network capacity is the only way to address their needs. New data centers should also help the cause and, at the same time, allow the telcos to introduce enhanced cloud-centric services. AT&T has long used existing data-center capacity to compete with Akamai in Web-content delivery.
But if there's a move to consolidate the big players in Web infrastructure, there hasn't been nearly enough work to improve the infrastructure of the Web itself. Optical-networking specialist Infinera
So be it. Infinera is the sort of disruptive innovator that we like at Motley Fool Rule Breakers. Why? History says it's the disruptors that remake industries and, in the process, unleash millions in shareholder wealth.
But don't take my word for it. Look at David Gardner. He produced a decade of 20% returns in the real-money Rule Breaker portfolio by betting on a collection of innovators and then holding them for the long term. Tom Gardner's "simpleton portfolio" was also a 10-year winner. I believe that, with my tech portfolio, I will achieve similar success.
Checkup time!
Now let's move on to the rest of today's update.
- Nanotech venture capitalist Harris & Harris enjoyed its first liquidity event in five years, when Amgen
(Nasdaq: AMGN)
- Though my overall tech portfolio won the week, shares of Akamai have taken a beating because of perceived weakness in the cloud-computing realm. The stock is down by 2.51% over the past five trading days. It's notable that the sell-off follows the release of Akamai's quarterly State of the Internet report. Q3's numbers show more Internet users surfing at 35% faster peak connection speeds. Clearly, Akamai and its peers are performing as they're supposed to.
There's your checkup. See you back here next week for more tech-stock talk.
Get your clicks with more techie Foolishness:
- Is this networker poised to pop? Some Fools think so.
- Good as this chipmaker seems, it's headed the wrong way.
- Take a closer look at what the Verizon iPhone will mean for AT&T.
The Motley Fool has created a brand-new free report called The Motley Fool's Top Stock for 2011 . In it, we reveal the little company set to profit from the broadband Internet expansion. Get instant access by clicking here -- it's free .
