The first annual Investment contest has concluded at the Game Site. We had nine portfolios vieing for the annual prize, and Noreen W. took the top spot in the contest. This was a contest of casual stock market investors – and at the beginning of the year I was curious as to how many could beat the S&P 500. It turns out that only 3 investors could beat the S&P 500 for the year. Noreen won by picking large cap blue chip stocks – which performed very well when many investors ‘flocked to safety’ largely due to European issues.
| Portfolio | 2011 Return |
|
|---|---|---|
| Noreen | 19.61 % | |
| Sarah | 6.36 % | |
| Tom | 5.10 % | |
| S&P 500 | -0.20 % | |
| Lynn | -0.46 % | |
| Mike N | -5.68 % | |
| Doc | -7.83 % | |
| Mike H | -9.94 % | |
| Tony | -18.17 % | |
| Lee | -22.36 |
I caught up with Noreen via email to get more insight into her investing philosophy. Anybody who gets a 19+% return in this market is worth listening to. When asked how she picked her stocks, her response was “Keep up with current affairs, get husband’s advice, and in the end pick something you like,
believe in”. It helps that her husband Tom came in 3rd place – also beating the S&P 500. So I was curious – of the 4 stocks in her portfolio – Hershey, McDonalds, Exxon, and IBM – her favorite stock is IBM “because it has original patents on NANO technology”. In addition to getting advice from her husband, she also gets her investment information from the Seattle
Times and CNBC Squawk Box. She is obviously skilled at filtering the good advice from the bad advice available.
Its interesting to note that Noreen was one of the few investors who made no trades during the year – she stuck with her original stocks. Is she looking at other stocks? Yes, it turns out – “Boeing, the orders keep coming”. Sounds like she is staying with the large cap blue chips for 2012.
And finally, her prediction for 2012? “Everything up” she says. Lets hope shes right, and maybe this year some of us other investors can try to match her success.