A 1-in-100 Investor

• Email
• Share
• Print

The first 100 days in office set the tone for any new president. Similarly, Motley Fool CAPS keeps an eye on how well its new 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. In this column, we're looking at top-rated members who made some of their best stock selections early in their CAPS careers, and perusing their latest picks for future outperformance.

One of our highest-rated CAPS players is BlackEagle7, who sports an impressive 99.83 member rating. A member since August 2007, BlackEagle7 currently has 200 active picks on CAPS, out of more than 1,000 stock picks made. Achieving 73% accuracy, BlackEagle7 has also already attracted 24 "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.

Stock	CAPS Rating (5 max)	Call	Price*	Current Score
Direxion Small Cap Bull 3X Shares	*	Underperform	$14.19	(42)
LifeTime Fitness (NYSE: LTM)	*	Underperform	$9.55	(41)
Macy's (NYSE: M)	*	Underperform	$6.82	(28)
Meritage Homes (NYSE: MTH)	**	Underperform	$13.09	1
Pfizer (NYSE: PFE)	****	Outperform	$14.13	(15)
Ultra Russell2000 ProShares	*	Underperform	$11.63	(24)
UltraShort Oil & Gas ProShares (NYSE: DUG)	*	Underperform	$28.55	33
UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (NYSE: SRS)	**	Outperform	$72.20	(54)
UltraShort Russell2000 Growth ProShares	*	Outperform	$73.99	(40)
Utilities Select Sector SPDR	**	Underperform	$24.07	2

Source: Motley Fool CAPS.
*Price when call was made. Current score is how many points a member is beating (lagging) the S&P500 index from the time of the call.

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

Degree of risk
Nothing tells you you're getting old better than reading that Pfizer is developing therapies for rheumatoid arthritis and the knee pain associated with osteoarthritis, and wondering how they might help your own aches and pains.

Pfizer has 100 drugs under development, according to its semiannual update on its research pipeline. The candidates are focused on a narrowed scope of inquiry -- Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, inflammation, pain management, and psychiatric disorders. Twenty-one of those drugs are entering late-stage testing; two have had applications filed for further use. Considering that cholesterol-fighter Lipitor – Pfizer's $12.5 billion revenue engine -- is set to face generic competition in 2011, investors expect that the drug's annual sales will dissipate. 

Clearly, Pfizer needs to restock its drug pipeline. In the meantime, it's joined the generics game itself. According to the Fool's own pharma guru Brian Orelli, Pfizer licenses 70 generic products from India's Aurobindo Pharma.

When the deal with Wyeth (NYSE: WYE) closes, Pfizer will also gain billions more in sales, helping to replace Lipitor's contribution, along with proposed cost savings of roughly $4 billion. Wyeth's arthritis drug Enbrel should dovetail agreeably with Pfizer's future plans, too.

When Pfizer announced the Wyeth buyout, it also revealed a 50% cut to its dividend. Although that cut made investors uneasy, it may have been just the right time for the company to surgically save cash. With quite a few big-name companies all taking a scalpel (if not a meat cleaver) to their dividends, Pfizer's cut is not the singular event it otherwise might have been. CAPS member richardpurkiss believes the stock's sell-off in the wake of the cut makes the current valuation very attractive:

Stock sold off mainly due to dividend cut but underlying free cash flow in the combined company is now about 30%-40% undervalued relative to the rest of US large-cap pharma. I think this gap will close in the next 6-12 months.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest members in the CAPS investor intelligence community have made their mark. If you're hoping to match their achievements, 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. Since it's free to sign up, why not use this opportunity to take your best shot?