A 1-in-100 Investor

Just as the first 100 days in office set the tone for any new president, Motley Fool CAPS keeps an eye on how well investors do in their first 100 days. Some of our best investors in CAPS -- we call them All-Stars -- have achieved scores of 100 on stock selections in their first 100 days with the service. In this column, we're looking at our best members who made some of their best stock selections early on, and we're seeing which stocks they think will be best next.

One of our highest-rated CAPS members is NTMF, who sports a 99.96 member rating. A member since January 2007, NTMF currently has 197 active picks on CAPS out of more than 1,200 stock picks made. Achieving 83% accuracy, NTMF has attracted 85 "groupies," CAPS members 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&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 leading player's assessment.

Degree of risk
Consumer spending may not have been as reckless as we've been led to believe, but neither should we believe the lies we're being told about how we need to stop saving to get the economy moving again. The economic upheaval we're going through is a necessary condition to get our financial houses back in order. We needed to stop using our inflated home values as a piggy bank to fund our desire for Hummers, 60-inch projection TVs, and other excesses of luxury that now seem to be in their final death throes.

Yet the death of luxury doesn't mean the demise of all consumer discretionary spending. Clothing will still need to be bought, even if we purchase it at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT). Durable brand names will still find a willing market for the consistent value that their products offer. And while some aspirational brands, such as Coach (NYSE:COH), have stabilized their decline, the spoils may accrue to lower-price-point retailers such as Fossil. It'll be trendy to save money again instead of engaging in the conspicuous consumption of the bubble.

It's the consumer's redefinition of his or her own her aspirations -- saving over spending, value for couture, and so on -- that has CAPS member elboliviano finding Fossil to be a gift: "While this a down market, Fossil makes products that are of great quality and relatively inexpensive. Therefore they can be part of what we could call a "gift basket" (i.e. products that people like to give away in special occasions."

Even in this market, the 838 companies that make up the CAPS Consumer Discretionary sector have managed to eke out a performance over the past month that exceeds that of the market itself. The 2% average climb in value shows there is a heartbeat still palpable in the consumer, and Fossil's 3% rise indicates that the investor may be eyeing this handbag and accessory retailer a little more closely.

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?