The Kirk Report

Spooky Stocks Portfolio!

It's Halloween and time for this year's 2009 Spooky Stocks Portfolio!

Earlier this week, I asked members to submit the name of the stock that they think is "most likely to scare investors and blow away their returns” between today and next year's Halloween. I received 48 picks to be considered for the portfolio. However, I decided to do something a little different this time around.

Over the past couple of years, both members and I would create separate portfolios to be tracked independently of each other sort of as a stock competition between all of us. In 2007-2008, the members' portfolio lost -51% while my picks lost -44%. This past year, however, I fared far better in choosing spooky stocks. My portfolio posted a -10.22% loss (8 gainers & 20 losers) versus the +18.48% gain (19 gainers & 11 losers) in the portfolio created by members. Yet, I must say that I'm disappointed in both of our performance as we should have been able to find bigger losers over the past year. Since last year's Halloween, the S&P has gained +6.96.

So, to create a better portfolio this year as a joint effort, I decided to fire up my own screeners this morning and to trim the list down in order to create a spooky portfolio I think has the most potential to produce the scariest returns (i.e. losses) in the coming year. To read the rest of this post, please login.

Members' Top Picks

As the end of the second quarter draws near, it is time once again to ask members to submit their top stock pick for the third quarter.

As you'll discover next week, members managed to do a very good job with their picks this quarter (collectively up +12.9% for the quarter while the S&P gained +1.5% as of yesterday's close). In fact, the best performing pick was Patriot Coal (PCX) which is up over +200%.

If you would like to participate for the third quarter members' top picks contest (and be eligible for some very good prizes), please login. If you are not a member and would still like to learn about winners from past quarters, please see the following from the first quarter of 2008 and the fourth quarter 2007.

Free Book Contest

If you read my Q&A with Dick Davis, the publisher has been kind enough to provide me with 10 books to give away.

The following represent some of Dick Davis' strongest beliefs - with the exception of one. Which is it?

1. Investment advisors seldom acknowledge the key role played by luck.

2. Most news is irrelevant to the investors. The news follows the market.

3. Deeply entrenched trends usually go further and last longer than expected.

4. Being instantly and totally informed is a curse for the long term investor.

5. When explaining why things happen in the market, investors have been conditioned to believe that the logical explanation is the correct one.

6. The price of every stock reflects three influences: fundamentals, technical, and emotional.

7. It is essential that investors do their homework.

8. A stock will always go lower after you buy it and higher after you sell it.

9. In describing the favorable prospects for his company, a CEO will never acknowledge that his bullish prospects may already be reflected in the higher price of the stock.

10. The best advice you can give or receive is stay healthy.

* Congratulations to the following people who earlier this week corrected said that number 7 was the exception. A free copy of "The Dick Davis Dividend" will be sent out to:

• B. Frakes, Missouri


• K. Speare, California


• S. Dietrich, California


• R. Rulete, Spain


• C. Coates, Pennsylvania


• K. Wong, Washington


• M. Kochummen, Texas


• P. Stanlick, Washington


• T. Hanson, Florida


• W. Denton, New York

Guess This Stock

Earlier today, three people submitted a correct guess and will receive autographed copies of Active Value Investing by Vitaliy N. Katsenelson.

In addition, 25 free Kirk Report t-shirts will be sent to others who participated in a random drawing. Thank you for participating in this contest! By the way, the correct answer was Jackson Hewitt (JTX).

Guess This Stock

If you think you know the stock and have not already won a free t-shirt in the past, please send me your guess. Good luck!

Guess This Stock

If you think you know the stock and have not already won a free t-shirt in the past, please send me your guess. Good luck!

Guess This Stock

If you think you know the stock, send me your guess. I'm giving away three T-shirts this morning (2 shirts to the first two members who answer correctly and 1 shirt to the first non-member). Good luck!

Guess This Stock

If you think you know the stock, send me your guess. I'm giving away three T-shirts this morning (2 shirts to the first two members who answer correctly and 1 shirt to the first non-member). Good luck!

Guess This Stock

If you think you know the stock, send me your guess. I'm giving away three T-shirts this morning (2 shirts to the first two members who answer correctly and 1 shirt to the first non-member). Good luck!

Guess This Stock

Send me your answer and if you're the first to respond correctly, I'll send you a free "The Kirk Report" T-shirt!