Stock picking Q1 results

Today is the day where we report the Q1 results for our friendly stock picking contest. It is the 3rd year and after winning the competition in 2009, I unfortunately did not perform as well last year but am certainly hoping to get back on top this year. One quarter in, I have to say that it’s been a rather boring ride so far with my picks as all of my picks are within 5% of each, all being more or less flat on the year. In a down year that’d be great but some of my competitors such as Mike from TheFinancialBlogger have done an amazing job with a return of over 12% on his picks! Very impressive and while it’s early in the year, things are certainly looking up for him.

First off, I’ll start with a review of my 4 picks!

My top pick so far this year has been a name that I discussed in my free newsletter as one of the top dividend stocks out there. The return so far this year has been fairly good although not much has happened to the stock

CTrip has once again been fairly under the radar although it does continue to display strong year over year growth. The stock continues to trade at a reasonable P/E ratio and while i would not call it a “bargain”, I still do think that it’s a good buy and am comfortable with the position. China’s continued growth and the explosion of the middle class will be key of course.

Without a doubt, this is the most surprising result in my opinion. Sure, Amazon commands a decent valuation but to have a company that has such a good year be flat after 3 months is surprising and disappointing. I guess it’s a good opportunity to load up on more stock but in the context of this contest, it is a deception, no doubt.

Pepsi has been active and I think the underlying business continues to look solid and has been expanding its operations abroad including in Russia. The numbers continue to look good and I do beleive that it does remain a more attractive choice than competitor Coca-Cola (KO).

Before ending this post, here are the results of the competition as we start the year in 6th place:

If you liked this post, you can consider subscribing to our free newsletters here

View the original article here