So, along with a group of financial newsletter legends like Mark Hulbert and Louis Navellier, not to mention a few thousand good folks like you, I was invited to enter MarketWatch's Virtual Stock Exchange competition. It's basically a stock-picking bout that will last two months, and the person standing at the top of the total return pile in the end wins.
Now, given that I'm a proponent of long-term investing via dividend-paying stocks, you might be wondering just what in the hula hoops I'm doing in this competition.
That's a good question -- one I've asked myself several times since I agreed to enter this contest. The truth is, my long-term strategy of buying dividend payers probably has about a snowball's chance in Hades of pulling off a win in this short-term competition, yet I've still entered to promote the art of dividend investing.
To the moon, Alice!
Of course, the way to win such contests is to pick a stock that has the potential to either launch to the moon or head straight through the floor on any given day -- and then hope it takes the moon route. It's that simple. In other words, we're not talking about low-beta beauties here (i.e., beta is a measure of volatility).
Yet, I'm not going to take that approach. Say huh? Have I lost my mind? Debatable, but let me share an interesting bit of news with you. When my friend and fellow newsletter advisor Robert Brokamp learned I would be participating in this competition, he sent me a fascinating article from CNNMoney. The piece described how finance professor Moshe Milevsky had won Canada's best-known stock-picking contest three years running by following the strategy I just described. Investors were allowed to pick one stock, and they had to hold that company for the duration of the tournament. In the most recent competition, Milevsky's stock treated readers to a 117% gain. But what's really interesting is what most of these picks do after the competition clock stops ticking. For instance, the same pick that surged 117% fell back to even just four days after the competition ended. So if you didn't buy at the opening of the contest and sell at its close, how much money did you make? Not very much. Milevsky sums it up better than most by saying, "Stocks like these can go up more than 100% very quickly, but they also offer about a fifty-fifty chance of losing you 95% of your money."
Frankly, that's not investing -- it's gambling. And investors don't discover this until it's too late. No one is going to stand over your shoulder and tell you when to sell these potential train wrecks.
Slow and steady will make you rich
I'm not interested in making money for my readers next week and losing it for them next month. The best dividend-paying stocks have a tendency to beat the market over time while exposing you to less volatility and lower business risk. That's what I'm here to tell you, and if it's the only thing I accomplish during this two-month contest besides embarrassing myself, I can live with that. I want you to have stocks in your portfolio that will make you money over your lifetime, not over the lifetime of your Chevy Blazer.
Though I'd like to think there are plenty of stocks among my Motley Fool Income Investor recommendations with the potential for large gains, no one can say exactly when they'll achieve them. Certainly some already have, but others may take years. And the crystal ball of a newsletter advisor is really no clearer than yours. That's why short-term investing is such a crapshoot.
The portfolio
Because I believe this approach is the one that will pay off for investors not just over the next two months but over the next 200, I'm here to throw my darts into the mix.
Here are the three companies I've selected from among our Income Investor holdings to represent my opening portfolio -- and perhaps my final portfolio. I will caution you that this group is composed of picks that are quite a bit more volatile than my typical recommendation, which makes them ideal for this competition. In short, please don't read anything into these selections other than that they're good choices for this exercise.
First we have Annaly Mortgage Management
If Equity Office Properties
Popular
So these three firms will represent my opening portfolio. During the competition, I plan to offer weekly updates and general dividend-loving commentary. Wish me luck!
Click here to learn more about Mathew's service and his dividend-investing strategy -- currently beating the market by more than four percentage points.
Annaly Mortgage, American Financial, and Popular are Income Investor recommendations. Mathew Emmert has owned shares in both Annaly and American Financial for several years. The Fool has adisclosure policy.