A 1-in-100 Investor

Presidents are often measured by what they achieve during their first 100 days in office. Schools have parties for students on the 100th day of the school year. When Jerry Yang returned to Yahoo! last summer, he gave himself 100 days to effect change at the online portal.

Around here at Motley Fool CAPS, we keep an eye on the 100-day mark, too. Some of our best investors -- we call them All-Stars -- have achieved top-player ratings after garnering a score of 100 in their first 100 days on CAPS. Analysis has shown that the top-rated stocks have had the best performance over the first year of CAPS, so might we assume that when the best players rate the best stocks, there is a correlation as well?

One of our highest-rated CAPS investors is JohnnyLC, who sports a near-perfect 99.98 player rating. A player since November 2006, JohnnyLC currently has 192 active picks on CAPS out of nearly 1,300 stock picks made. Achieving better than 73% accuracy, JohnnyLC has also attracted 79 "groupies" -- CAPS players who've listed this leading investor as one of their favorites.

Here are a few of the most recent stock selections and how they were rated.

A mutually exclusive opportunity
It's been a tough few months for private student loan provider First Marblehead, which has suffered a series of misfortunes that were not of its own making, and its stock has suffered a meltdown in the process. The latest of a series of cracks that ran through its facade was when Bank of America passed on partnering with the company to fund student loans. That came on the heels of the bankruptcy filing of the non-profit company that guaranteed the loans First Marblehead wrote to students.

Even though its stock had been beaten down and it has a seemingly solid balance sheet -- along with backing from none other than Goldman Sachs, though the final amount will undoubtedly be much less than originally anticipated -- those two news items sent shares down 17% and 35%, respectively, in response.

The risk of not being able to securitize student loans in a credit market where there is little demand these days for such investments weighs on investors like CAPS player tycoonbull, who realizes the short-term outlook isn't bright, but if you have a long-term horizon, First Marblehead might make sense.

More obviously, TERI's recent bankruptcy filing is a major detriment to [First Marblehead]'s business model... Due to tighter credit markets, and prior to TERI's filing, [First Marblehead]'s business had already slowed drastically too... [E]asing of credit fears in the secondary markets could open up the securitization market for [First Marblehead], (which will likely operate with a new guarantor partner).

I believe [First Marblehead]'s price may linger below $5 in the short-run... But if you have any confusion as to whether I think eventually, in the long run, [First Marblehead] is still going to outperform the market, I'm standing firm; a risky outperform with a 3 year time-line, my prediction remains as is.

Of course, some investors like synergize follow the news and update their calls accordingly. This player made an underperform call on First Marblehead early this month, then posted a link to a recent Boston Business Journal article that said that the Royal Bank of Scotland was ending a pair of agreements with the lender, joining Bank of America. The question, of course, is whether First Marblehead will be able to continue to make a profit.

A 1-in-100 opportunity
Some of the best and smartest players in the CAPS investor intelligence community have loaned out their opinion on First Marblehead, but we haven't heard from you yet. 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?