Value Microcaps PICKSIX LOTTO CHAMPION

[lentinman]

Gilead FINAL MEMORIAL: Taken from Ibox:

PICK SIX LOTTO SEVEN (PSL7): http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=9121

September 17th to December 14th.
75 Participants -- Gainers: 42, Losers: 33
Average gain: +8%

WINNER: Gilead23: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/profile.asp?user=27444

Top 10 Posters

 1 GILEAD23          68.11% 
  2 DEATHTOTAXES      64.36% 
  3 SHMOLTON          64.05% 
  4 NELSON1234        55.75% 
  5 STEELEDGE         49.31% 
  6 2MORROWSGAINS     45.35% 
  7 NORTHERNLIGHTSK05 45.31% 
  8 MICHAEL T         45.06% 
  9 SNAKEMAN84        40.65% 
 10 TMCAL6            38.66%

Top 10 Stocks:

 1 CEUA.OB 295.06% 
  2 CHNR    136.96% 
  3 FCPO    124.49% 
  4 SDTH    115.56% 
  5 DGLY.OB 110.34% 
  6 GUFR.OB 108.33% 
  7 FSIN    102.39% 
  8 ARTW     99.75% 
  9 CPHI.OB  95.48% 
 10 CHND.OB  89.05%

Persons in First Place during the contest.

Gilead
Shmolton
Nelson
Stiffler
DanLC
StockPeeker


GILEADS' VITAL STATISTICS:

He started out week 1 in 16th place, dropped to 34th in week 2 and 41st in week 3. From there, it was a steady climb - 30, 29, 22, 17, 12, 4, 4, 2nd and 3rd on the next to last week. He took his first lead in the final week of the contest. His high was +68% where he ended.

GILEAD's COMMENTARY:

I have been managing my own money since the fall of 1998 starting with a few thousand dollars I convinced my wife to let me play with. I graduated college in 1993 with a finance degree and passed the first two levels of the CFA exam with the intent of becoming a portfolio manager. As it turned out I got into software development instead and by various twists of fate I write some of the tools that portfolio managers and traders use.

Despite what should have been a useful background I am sometimes shocked at the stupid decisions I made early on. Many of them worked out as a matter of luck but my technique was equivilent to picking names out of a hat.

I started to get things right around 2001 and bumped into Hweb over on raging bull in 2003 I think when I bought USOO at around .65. That led me to the old RB board and eventually here.

My approach at the macro-level is the same as everyone elses. I try to be the one eyed man in the land of the blind by seeing reasons why stocks should go up that others can't see. I focus on microcaps because with big caps there are too many thousand eyed creatures out there watching everything. Its harder to see what others don't in those stocks plus it takes a long time to read through 100 page 10k's, understand disparate business lines, complex financing etc. After all that your returns are smaller even if you do succeed.

What I don't do is try to look ahead 2 or 3 years. Projecting long term results for a company especially a small one is so uncertain as to be nearly worthless. I am looking for something I think can appreciate in 3 - 6 months or at most a year ideally based on discernable facts rather than speculation. I also want things that are going to succeed the overwhelming majority of the time. That usually means stocks I expect to sell at a modest premium to earnings.

I typically look for stocks that I expect to show forward PE's under 10. I base this on a variety of things including backlog numbers, contract announcements, significant changes in expenses etc. I also run some relatively complex screens that try to project near term future earnings based on trends in sales, margins and expenses. In addition I get alot of ideas from the good old VMC board which IMO is the best screening tool around.

In this particular contest I owned 8 stocks
AYSI,ZYNX,DWCH,ARTW,IRD.TO,DGLY,TBTC,CXPO

Of these I found 4 on my own (ARTW,IRD.TO,DGLY,DWCH) and 4 from
VMC posters (AYSI,ZYNX,TBTC,CXPO)

That just shows how valuable a tool the posts on this message board really are. Going forward I hope to add to my bag of tricks to get better at this. There are alot of things I do now that I didn't do just a couple years back and there is always another way to improve your vision in the land of the blind (like buying contacts). I very much appreciate that much like my stock picks I have developed some of these tricks on my own and others I have picked up on VMC.

This is a great group that has contributed significantly to my success.

I hope I contribute to some of yours as well.


PSL1 CHAMPION'S BOARD SUMMARY: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=11054704
PSL2 CHAMPION'S BOARD SUMMARY: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=13102250
PSL3 CHAMPION'S BOARD SUMMARY: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=15707449
PSL4 CHAMPION'S BOARD SUMMARY: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=19222015
PSL5 CHAMPION'S BOARD SUMMARY: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22596832
PSL6 CHAMPION'S BOARD SUMMARY:http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=25347294

NEXT UP: PICK SIX LOTTO 8: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=11462