Thanks SSKILLZ1 and thanks for another great job running the thing.
Thanks to all for your congratulations. It was a fun contest with KIK leading out the gates. He got a little cute with leveraged trades and gave us all a chance. Bucfan had a strong run and was in there until the end. Wade was maneuvering "low PE going forward" earnings plays quite well and would have won if not for a couple of moves at the end that backfired. You traded out of some positions that might have won it for you as well.
As you can see from my picks, I took a fairly conservative approach with 4 large caps (AAPL, ULTA, AH, ALXN) and two mid caps (FTK, HS).
Excluding those that picked wild cards, I would guess that my picks had the highest PE (forward or backward) of any contestant. The large caps were all on the top 10 of the IBD-Top 50 list with "EPS ranks" of 99. The three large caps other than Apple, had PE's over 50, and FTK had an even higher one. HS had a strong quarter which may have attracted some interest after its' summer decline from 45 to 30, but was around 35 with some negative vibes for the sector.
For the most part, my trades didn't help. I switched from ULTA (at its' low -10%) for HITK. The latter had a nice run in the latter weeks, but reported earnings a week too soon, and plunged from 44 to 38 last Monday despite beating expectations by something like $1.04 vs .78. I almost traded it for ANLY on Friday with a BT2, but didn't.
Anyway, the large caps mostly had modest gains, with AH at -3% as the only negative. HS was bought out mid-contest at about a 55% premium. FTK ran all quarter for a 75% gain. I attempted to use the HS leverage on a microcap, CXM, missed taking gains, but froze out before an eventual loss. I moved it into AGM at 16.3, mostly as a defensive maneuver, so I could sleep at night.
Anyway, for this contest large caps and high PE won out :)
