Welcome to week 125 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 | $51.75 | 132.8% |
Harris & Harris | $6.22 | $4.99 | (19.8%) |
IBM | $123.46** | $150 | 21.5% |
Oracle | $22.37** | $31.25 | 39.7% |
Taiwan Semiconductor |
$9.35** | $13.68 | 46.3% |
AVERAGE RETURN | -- | -- | 44.1% |
S&P 500 SPDR | $120.57** | $129.30 | 7.24% |
DIFFERENCE | -- | -- | 36.86 |
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
*Tracking began on Aug. 7, 2008.
**Adjusted for dividends and other returns of capital.
After a two-week hiatus to celebrate the new year and attend the Consumer Electronics Show, I’m back with another look at my tech portfolio. The absence was good to Mr. Market, but better for my five stocks. I've gained back most of the 5 points lost in the week leading up to the Christmas holiday.
Not that indexers have much to complain about. We're just two weeks into 2011, and already the S&P 500 is up by 2.83% and the Nasdaq by 3.86%, CNBC reports. Good news from JPMorgan Chase helped fuel the gains. The once-troubled bank reported strong earnings and teased the possibility of raising its dividend.
Abroad, there's surging interest in emerging-market stocks even as Europe stares down a debt crisis and China faces renewed accusations of reverse-merger fraud. The MSCI Asia-Pacific index closed at 139.31 on Thursday, a new two-and-a-half-year high. Melco Crown Entertainment
The week in tech
Here in the United States, blue-chip techies led the markets. Apple
Google
Motorola Mobility will be among the first to get a Honeycomb tablet to market. An initial version of Moto's Xoom slate is due before the end of the quarter, with a 4G edition expected to ship during Q2. Here's a closer look at all of Tabletpalooza's winners, losers, and also-rans.
But CES was about more than tablets. Vendors showed off 3-D technology, in-car systems, new smartphones, and all other forms of geekery. In short: It was an in-your-face look at the latest in disruptive innovation. History says this is exactly what we should be paying attention to as investors.
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.
- This week, Akamai teamed with cloud-computing peer Rackspace Hosting
(NYSE: RAX) to offer accelerated delivery of hosted media and files. It's the beginning of a multiyear deal that should benefit hundreds of customers the two companies already share.
- On Monday, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing reported a 41.9% increase in full-year 2010 revenue as demand for advanced electronics of the sort seen at CES drew customers to order more chips from its foundries. By Friday, the stock had reached a 52-week high of $13.69 per share.
There's your checkup. See you back here next week for more tech-stock talk.
Get your clicks with more techie Foolishness:
- Take a closer look at CES's four best stocks.
- Look out, netbook. Here comes the iPad.
- Verizon gets the iPhone; here's who loses out on the deal.
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 .