Articles that make blanket statements like “these are the stocks to own in X year” drive me absolutely bananas. It feeds the need for instant results and worse there doesn’t seem to be an accountability when the idea fails to beat the market. Investing should be done on a multi-year maybe multi-decade approach, so it is interesting when an article says this is what you need to own for the next 365 days.
In the past when I looked up how the “‘Top’ Stocks for 2007 and 2008 were doing in 2012” some hit the mark for the year and some failed to come close to the broad market. Since writing that post the market is up a ridiculous amount so it’ll be interesting to see how they are doing now in a different post.
For this post I found some lists from some pretty notable Experts and one Company. I am not entirely sure it is a fair comparison but for a point of reference YTD (12/17/2014) the S&P Index is up 8.9%
Fourteen Stocks to Watch for 2014 – Kirk Spano
The article written by Kirk Spano is much better than most of the articles or clips you see on the topic. Mr. Spano provides his reasoning and even stats:
While every company here might not outperform in the next 12 months, my analysis leads me to believe all offer extremely strong potential over the next several years.
That disclaimer is a powerful statement and puts him in a different light than most. Here were his picks and how they did YTD:
- Chesapeake Energy – Down 31.17%
- Whiting Petroleum Corp – Down 51.19%
- Triangle Petroleum Corporation – Down 43.27%
- C&J Energy Services – Down 42.64%
- Flotek Industries – Down 12.36%
- Sunedison Inc – Up 47.13%
- Barrick Gold – Down 38.97%
- Veolia Environment – Up 6.78%
- Apple – Up 36.51%
- AIG – up 5.82%
- Citi – Up .65%
- Global Cash Access – Down 35.94%
- Laboratory Corp of America – Up 13.34%
- Exact Sciences – Up 121.45%!
My top 10 Stocks for 2014: Farr
I appreciate that Mr. Farr states that he lagged the broad market the previous years (i.e. 2012 and 2013). Guess we can find out how he did this year:
- Family Dollar – Up 21.98%
- CVS Caremark – Up 31.58%
- Schlumberger – Down 8.02%
- Johnson & Johnson – Up 13.63%
- Qualcomm – Down 2.75%
- United Technologies – Up .09%
- Abbott Laboratories – Up 15.47%
- Patterson Companies – Up 16.48%
- Accenture – Up 3.75%
- JP Morgan – Up 2.21%
Wow Mr. Far did well this year! Some of those are probably even lower than what they should be if the investor reinvested dividends.
Goldman Sachs 40 Stocks to Own in 2014
Wow from the top of the food chain! I hope these did good.
- Alcoa – Up 41.58%
- JM Smucker – Down 3.16%
- Citi – Up .65%
- Suntrust – Down 10.16%
- Avon – Down 45.82%
- Allegheny Technologies – Down 10.52%
- Chevron – Down 15.12%
- XL Group – Up 5.72%
- Freeport Down 41.36%
- Kohls – Up 1.57%
- Marathon Oil – Down 24.45%
- Edison – Up 37.99%
- Walmart – Up 7.04%
- PG&E – Up 30.91%
- Entergy Corp – Up 38.01%
- Hospira – Up 45.95%
- Express Scripts – Up 13.81%
- Cisco – Up 19.53%
- Tenet Healthcare Corp – Down 3.62%
- Juniper Netowrks – Down 5.1%
- Apache Corp – Down 29.95%
- Noble Corp – Down 56.23%
- Exelon Corp – Up 33.55%
- Abbott Lab – Up 15.47%
- Ford – Down 6,35%
- Century Link – Up 21.48%
- PWR – Down 15.62%
- Stanley Black & Decker – Up 16.98%
- First Energy – Up 15.4%
- DR Horton – Up 8.38%
- John Deere – down 2.84%
- Newfield Exploration – Up 4.79%
- Target – Up 16.28%
- Laboratory Corp – up 13.34%
- Jabil Circuit – up 15.08%
- Family Dollar – Up 21.98%
- Lennar Corp – Up 8.97%
- Quest Diagnostics – Up 19.13%
- Cliff Natural Resources – Down 75.54%
The real test would be back dating it, or taking the numbers and determining what 10,000 portfolio would look like but considering the time this post took I couldn’t even imagine the time it would take.
Notwithstanding the actual outcomes, I think the important lesson would be that you can’t blindly follow any guru or expert. It is your responsibility to either do your research or go the passive route.
