stocks

Value at beginning (May 4, 2001)

randomness

S&P 500 index (adjusted from 1266.61)

Punch here to go back to This & That

Stock Picking Game
...trying to do better than random picks
May 2001 to April 2005
This was a fun experiment to see if I could do better picking stocks to buy and sell than doing so at random. At May 4, 2001 closing prices, $1000 worth of stocks, 10 companies at $100 each, were selected at random and another set selected by me. The rules were that every four months both sets, the random selections and mine, had to sell two stocks and buy two more. Which two to sell were randomly selected as well as the subsequent purchases for the random set. (The four-month period was increased from a three-month period which was increased from a two-month period at the beginning of the game.) Dividends were artificially accumulated monthly instead of quarterly to make things easier. The number of stocks in the chart is rounded, but a fractional number used for the calculations. The S&P 500 index was used to compare the success of these selections. That value was 1266.61 on May 4. For comparison's sake, the S&P 500 index number included an accumulation of dividends equal to the average of the dividends made by the random set and my set.

The game was fun but too time consuming to continue forever. One thing I learned was that randomly selecting stocks and watching them can open one's horizon to stocks not considered otherwise. I think people tend to gravitate to the same old types of stocks or popular stocks when there are more opportunities available not normally reported in the news.

Randomly selected						Aaron selected
Company	Symbol	Cost	Dividend	Number of Stocks	Price (Apr 29)	Company	Symbol	Cost	Dividend	Number of Stocks	Price (Apr 29)
Reliant Energy	RRI	9.91	0	10	10.17	Valero Energy	VLO	45.40	0.32	2	68.53
Transtech Industries	TRTI.OB	0.055	0	1818	0.11	Landec	LNDC	8.02	0	12	6.40
Presstek	PRST	8.05	0	12	7.45	Littelfuse	LFUS	34.16	0	3	26.94
Man Sang Holdings	MSHI.OB	2.55	0	39	6.73	Emerson Electric	EMR	62.25	1.60	2	62.67
Intevac	IVAC	7.56	0	13	8.56	Devon Energy	DVN	56.00/2	0.40	2	45.17
Vital	VTAL	23.034	0	4	14.37	Goldcorp (took over WHT)	GG	2.91 for 34 WHT	0	9	12.94
Badger Meter, Inc.	BMI	21.775	1.12	4	33.95	Massey Energy	MEE	22.50	0.16	4	36.11
Amsurg Corp.	AMSG	22.70	0	4	25.89	PPG Ind.	PPG	54.91	1.80	2	67.55
Barrick (took over HM)	ABX	7.92 for 13 HM	0.22	7	22.32	Eaton	ETN	60.35	1.08	2	58.65
PetroKazakhstan (was Hurricane Hydrocarbon)	PKZ	13.469	0.4449	7	29.03	Lufkin Industry	LUFK	13.61	0.72	7	29.42

Punch here to see sales gain and dividend details

Sales gains to date
randomness	Aaron
+$587.26	+$296.77

Dividends to date
randomness	Aaron	S&P
$74.80	$90.13	$82.47

Monthly progress: $ vs. month:
chart