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 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. Since data shows that the best stocks to buy and sell have gotten top ratings, might we also assume that when the best players rate the best stocks, there is a correlation?

One of our highest-rated CAPS members is JRtrader08, who sports a near-perfect 99.94 member rating. A member since December 2006, JRtrader08 currently has 66 active picks on CAPS out of more than 1,300 stock picks made. Achieving 76% accuracy, JRtrader08 has also attracted 57 "groupies," CAPS players 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&P 500 index from the time of the call.

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

Alcoa
One of the world's largest aluminum producers was hurt in the third quarter by a double whammy of weaker aluminum demand coupled with lower aluminum prices. This led Alcoa to report weaker-than-expected earnings of $0.43 per share, after adjustments for one-time items, which was 14% below analyst estimates. Shares have fallen as much as 46% since third-quarter earnings were released last month, but have recovered somewhat in the past couple of days. The long-term trends, however, point to companies still needing what Alcoa makes, and CAPS member IsItFoolish sees the next generation of cars as a development that will spur greater growth:

The next generation of hybrid and electric cars will require the use of more aluminum to save weight driving the price of aluminum back up. Recent deals with ferrari and audi are evidence of this trend. While waiting for the stock price to return this stock pays a nice dividend. Management is looking forward and signing long term deals for cheap electricity out until 2028 which is evidence that the company is planning for the future.

Dell
With the No. 2 PC maker set to report earnings later this month, analysts are expecting Dell to fall short of forecasts, and the cost-saving measures it’s scurrying to implement -- five days of unpaid leave, for example -- seem to underscore that assessment. CAPS member demger believes the computer maker squandered an opportunity it had a few years ago to make the choices necessary to engineer a turnaround and is now paralyzed by what it faces. You can read the full pitch on Dell's CAPS page. An excerpt:

This company is in trouble right now. Like many founders before him, Dell needs to hand the wheel to a competent CEO that can take DELL to a new place, even if it means abandoning the principles that made DELL successful. Until then, this is one of those rotten apples that will continue to decline.

Silver Wheaton
Top-rated CAPS All-Star JBouchard feels that silver has industrial uses that will propel Silver Wheaton forward, while the producer's current valuation provides a significant margin of safety:

Graham formula gives me a fair value of $5.32, the ... current price of $3.52 constitutes a margin of safety of 30%.

Silver is an industrial metal; it gets consumed rather than stored like gold. And with the decline in oil prices, mining becomes less costly.

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?