By
Tim Beyers
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More Articles
November 14, 2008
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Welcome to week 14 of my stock-picking throwdown with Mr. Market. Let's get right to the numbers:
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Company
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Starting Price*
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Recent Price
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Total Return
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Akamai
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$22.23
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$13.35
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(39.9%)
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Harris & Harris (Nasdaq: TINY )
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$6.22
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$4.72
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(24.1%)
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IBM (NYSE: IBM )
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$129.05
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$84.21
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(34.7%)
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Oracle
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$22.75
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$17.72
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(22.1%)
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Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM )
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$10.34
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$7.50
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(27.5%)
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AVERAGE RETURN
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--
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--
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(29.66%)
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S&P 500 SPDR (AMEX: SPY )
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$126.28**
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$91.17
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(27.80%)
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DIFFERENCE
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--
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--
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(1.86%)
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Source: Yahoo! Finance. *Tracking began on Aug. 7, 2008. **Adjusted for dividends and other returns of capital.
I'll say this for Mr. Market: He's focused. Who cares if we have a new president? He's more concerned with stop-and-start bailouts than with weak earnings from tech stalwarts such as Intel (Nasdaq: INTC ) . Thus, my digital portfolio continues to blink a bright shade of red.
But is that really fair? One prognosticator says that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL ) is headed for the mother of all earnings blowouts in January. Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO ) , short-term woes notwithstanding, is outrageously cheap. Nibbling at low-priced tech stocks like these now should lead to a feast of wealth later.
Consider history. David Gardner produced a decade of 20% returns by buying and holding the likes of Amazon and eBay in the real-money Rule Breaker portfolio. Tom Gardner's "simpleton portfolio" was also a market-beater. I believe that, with these five tech stocks, I will achieve similar success.
Checkup time!
Now, let's move on to the rest of today's update:
- Harris & Harris' third-quarter letter to shareholders is now available. Net asset value declined, as expected, but liquid assets still account for nearly 50% of this tiny tech investor's market cap at current prices. Crazy.
- IBM may, indeed, be legally in the right with this lawsuit. But it still sounds silly.
- Taiwan Semiconductor reported a 10.6% decline in October sales due to the slowing global economy. I'm waiting it out because, to me, TSMC's dividend yield of more than 5% appears sustainable.
There's your checkup. See you back here next week for more tech-stock talk.
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