Welcome to week 37 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 |
$19.58 |
(11.90%) |
Harris & Harris |
$6.22 |
$4.71 |
(24.30%) |
IBM |
$127.64** |
$101.42 |
(20.50%) |
Oracle |
$22.69** |
$19.68 |
(13.30%) |
Taiwan Semiconductor |
$10.34 |
$9.17 |
(11.30%) |
AVERAGE RETURN |
-- |
-- |
(16.26%) |
S&P 500 SPDR |
$124.37** |
$85.37 |
(31.36%) |
DIFFERENCE |
-- |
-- |
15.10 |
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
*Tracking began on Aug. 7, 2008.
**Adjusted for dividends and other returns of capital.
Talk about a turbulent week. A smattering of stronger-than-expected earnings reports and a surge of investor enthusiasm clashed with news of a potential conspiracy at Bank of America
Yet his mood may prove moot. There's mounting evidence that March's big rally, which extended into early April, will soon end. Global deleveraging -- as much as $4 trillion in credit-fueled economic damage, according to the International Monetary Fund -- could stunt economic growth, and thereby stock prices, for years to come.
Caterpillar
Caterpillar, you're no butterfly.
The week in tech
Nor are many of the tech titans that reported earnings this week. Microsoft
Motley Fool Rule Breakers
recommendation VMware
Of all the techies checking in with investors this week, Apple
But Apple is the rare winner in tech right now. Investors are therefore best served by exercising prudence in picking stocks -- stick to the very best -- and patience in waiting for gains. That's how David Gardner produced a decade of 20% returns in the real-money Rule Breaker portfolio. Tom Gardner's "simpleton portfolio" was also a 10-year winner. With these five tech stocks, I believe I'll achieve similar success.
Checkup time!
Let's move on to the rest of today's update:
- Investors and IT managers alike have expressed mixed feelings over Oracle's planned $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems. To assuage fears, Ken Jacobs, who leads product strategy for Oracle's server technologies, spoke at this week's annual MySQL user conference. MySQL is an open-source database that's proven popular for Web software, and which has been described as a threat to Oracle's core franchise. Jacobs used his time on stage to speak of a history of collaboration between Oracle and MySQL and promised more, The Register's Gavin Clarke reported.
There's your checkup. See you back here next week for more tech stock talk.
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