A 1-in-100 Investor

The first 100 days in office sets the tone for any new president. Similarly, Motley Fool CAPS keeps an eye on how well 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 our best players who made some of their best stock selections early on and seeing which ones they think will be best next.

One of our highest rated CAPS members is ShockTrader, who sports an impressive 99.82 member rating. A member since December 2008, ShockTrader currently has 120 active picks on CAPS out of more than 230 stock picks made. Achieving 76% accuracy, ShockTrader has also already attracted four "groupies" so far, 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 percentage points a member is beating (lagging) the S&P 500 index by 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.

Foreclosing on an industry
Anyone waiting for the housing industry to turn around can probably wait a while longer, according to the National Assoc. of Realtors. If the proposed plan to reduce home-ownership tax benefits for the wealthiest families goes through, the mortgage tax deduction that's estimated to keep $100 billion a year in the pockets of taxpayers would find itself in danger of being gored. Under the Obama proposal, those in the top tax bracket of 35% would see their tax savings drop from $350 to $280 for every $1000 in deductions, beginning in 2011.

Why is this a problem for the housing industry? A look at Toll Brothers (NYSE:TOL) results ought to be enough. The luxury homebuilder reported an $89 million loss for the first fiscal quarter of 2009 (ending Jan 31), narrower than the losses posted last year, but quarterly revenue was sliced in half, and signed contracts dropped by 59% on a unit basis. Toll expects to deliver between 2,000 and 3,000 homes this year, down from the 4,743 homes it closed last year, and well below the 8,769 homes it closed on at the industry peak in 2005. Hovnanian, perhaps the worst builder stock out there with a debt-to-capital ratio nearly half again its industry peers, isn't in much better shape.

Making luxury builders' homes even less attractive by attacking the tax deduction won't help turn the industry around. KB Homes, which posted a $976 million loss last year, hardly needs anything else to keep people from buying its homes. It delivered 48% fewer homes last year than in 2007 and has cut about 11% of its workforce.

CAPS member ellistea1024 understands that the industry probably won't be seeing better days for a year or so, but doesn't want to count KB Homes down and out just yet. With over $1.1 billion in cash and equivalents, they may yet survive to build again:

New construction is definitely going to be down for another 2-4 years at least. However, past that time frame, I wouldn't count out [KB Homes]. Here in SoCal, they've built a lot of homes in the past and, I believe, will survive to build again.

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?