Welcome to week 14 of my stock-picking throwdown with Mr. Market. Let's get right to the numbers:
Company |
Starting Price* |
Recent Price |
Total Return |
---|---|---|---|
Akamai |
$22.23 |
$13.35 |
(39.9%) |
Harris & Harris |
$6.22 |
$4.72 |
(24.1%) |
IBM |
$129.05 |
$84.21 |
(34.7%) |
Oracle |
$22.75 |
$17.72 |
(22.1%) |
Taiwan Semiconductor |
$10.34 |
$7.50 |
(27.5%) |
AVERAGE RETURN |
-- |
-- |
(29.66%) |
S&P 500 SPDR |
$126.28** |
$91.17 |
(27.80%) |
DIFFERENCE |
-- |
-- |
(1.86%) |
Source: Yahoo! Finance. *Tracking began on Aug. 7, 2008. **Adjusted for dividends and other returns of capital.
I'll say this for Mr. Market: He's focused. Who cares if we have a new president? He's more concerned with stop-and-start bailouts than with weak earnings from tech stalwarts such as Intel
But is that really fair? One prognosticator says that Apple
Consider history. David Gardner produced a decade of 20% returns by buying and holding the likes of Amazon and eBay in the real-money Rule Breaker portfolio. Tom Gardner's "simpleton portfolio" was also a market-beater. I believe that, with these five tech stocks, I will achieve similar success.
Checkup time!
Now, let's move on to the rest of today's update:
- Harris & Harris' third-quarter letter to shareholders is now available. Net asset value declined, as expected, but liquid assets still account for nearly 50% of this tiny tech investor's market cap at current prices. Crazy.
- IBM may, indeed, be legally in the right with this lawsuit. But it still sounds silly.
- Taiwan Semiconductor reported a 10.6% decline in October sales due to the slowing global economy. I'm waiting it out because, to me, TSMC's dividend yield of more than 5% appears sustainable.
There's your checkup. See you back here next week for more tech-stock talk.
Get your clicks with more techie Foolishness:
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- Mr. Softy warms up to Sun? Wow.