A 1-in-100 Investor

Presidents are often measured by what they achieve during their first 100 days in office. Schools have parties for students on the 100th day of the school year. Newly appointed executives are often expected to affect substantial change, if not realize greater shareholder value, within their first 100 days.

Around here at Motley Fool CAPS, we keep an eye on the 100-day mark, too. Some of our best investors -- we call them All-Stars -- have achieved top player ratings after garnering a score of 100 in their first 100 days on CAPS. Analysis has shown that the top-rated stocks have had the best performance over the past year, so might we assume that when the best players rate the best stocks, there is a correlation as well?

One of our highest-rated CAPS members is MLGtrader, who sports a nearly perfect 99.96 player rating. A player since April of this year, MLGtrader currently has 189 active picks on CAPS. Having achieved 75% accuracy, MLGtrader has also attracted 18 "groupies," CAPS players who've listed this leading investor as one of their favorites.

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

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

When Apple sneezes …
Being tied to one product or one customer can pose a high risk that investors can't be faulted for avoiding. Should the product fail or the customer change vendors, a stock can tank. But what of a company tied to a single individual? Few can find fault with the way Warren Buffett has captained Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B), but there's risk built into the stock, and it will surface when his successor must eventually take over. That's why the health of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is causing jitters amongst investors.  

The company previously said Jobs simply had the common cold, but its new line is that his health is a private matter. That remark has set off worries that his pancreatic cancer may have returned, and with Apple's current success so tied into Jobs' vision, if he must leave his post, then the market may be right to consider the results when someone new takes over.

Such concerns, however, don't bother CAPS member diezen, who finds Apple's depth of product and people enough to overcome any concerns over Jobs' health.

Apple has great products, strongly increasing market share with their flagship [iPhones] and [iMacs]. They usually lower their forward estimates, but in the current market people are taking those numbers as real, without taking into account that apple always do this to crash those numbers in the following earnings period. Time to buy and accumulate on this wonderful company. Steve [Jobs' health] problem may be a rumor or not, but [whatever the true story, Apple is] a wonderful company with bright innovative people and [it's] going to survive and continue growing without their CEO.

One lump or two?
It's clear that MLGtrader is backing the agricultural growth trend in stocks such as Agrium, Mosaic, Intrepid Potash, and PotashCorp. Such basket plays can often boost a portfolio's return, since many of the strongest players in a field rise in sympathy with good news. Intrepid, as the newest player on the block, has seen its shares rise 19% since its IPO this past April, and although it's well off its highs of $76 a share last month, strong international demand will continue to fertilize these stocks.

That's what has CAPS member srchn4winners figuring that Intrepid will continue its growth spurt.

This Potash Mining play tracks right in line with Potash of Saskatchewan. Based in Wendover Utah, [the company] sits on a large and barely tapped field of Post Ice-Age sediment at the old bottom of what used to be Lake Bonneville. ... Just recently made public, the company has operated at a profit for many years and went public only as a means of expanding their ability to enhance their extraction of this crucial fertilizer component. With the growing bio-fuel and world food supply needs ... I see fertilizer component plays as not only attractive for investors but as filling a long-term world need for increased food and bio-fuel production.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest players in the CAPS investor intelligence community have made their mark, but we haven't heard yet from you. As hockey great Wayne Gretzky once quipped, 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?