Synthstuff - music, photography and more...

Hot Stock Tip

Think you do a good job of picking stocks? Rely on your brokers advice? From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Primal picks
The monkey likes his veggies, syringes

This year, Mr. Adam Monk, the Sun-Times' stock-picking monkey who has beaten the market for four years running, is into erectile dysfunction. He's also into syringes, women's clothes and fresh fruit and vegetables. But don't get the wrong idea.

These are the businesses of Mr. Monk's latest stock picks, made last week exclusively for the Sun-Times. And that means only one thing: It's time again for the Sun-Times Monkey Manager stock-picking contest, celebrating the wisdom of the everyday investor and primate.

Yes, despite all you hear about consolidation and cost-cutting in the Mainstream Media, with its Incredible Shrinking Newspapers, here we are back with the contest this year, and again with a fabulous prize for the reader who guesses the top-gaining stock of 2007. It's from Apple Vacations, America's Favorite Vacation Company, and details run alongside this story.

To get the stock-guessing juices flowing, I visited Mr. Monk last week at his natural habitat, Animal Rentals Inc., 5742 W. Grand. The senior-citizen cebus monkey crawled over newspaper stock pages (yes, we found some!) arrayed on a desk, and marked his five favorites with a pen. It's now a time-honored ritual, documented by a Sun-Times photographer and the accounting firm Howard, Fine & Howard.

His selections are included in an accompanying table. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that Mr. Monk, progressive as ever, is trying something new. One of his stocks isn't a stock at all, strictly speaking. It's an exchange-traded fund, Market 2000 HOLDRS Trust (MKH), which represents shares of the 50 largest-cap companies. "It's going to be a big year for that part of the market," Mr. Monk told this reporter. "I had this pathetic intern working for me, and I told him to go buy me some large caps. He came back with this boxload of incredibly ugly cheesehead things. So I got into that market with this ETF."

His other picks include companies in pharmaceutical supplies (the syringes) and medical devices (for sundry pelvic issues), historically two of Mr. Monk's favorite sectors. Rounding out his portfolio are Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. (FDP) and ladies' apparel maker Cygne Designs Inc. (CYDS).

And Mr. Monk's track record?

In the four years since Mr. Monk has chaired and inspired this contest, his stocks have posted annual returns of 37 percent, 36 percent, 3 percent and, in 2006, 36 percent, beating the major indexes every time. It's proof that you don't have to be an insider CEO, an insider hedge-fund manager or a loudmouth on CNBC to make money in the market.

Not too shabby! Posted by DaveH at January 17, 2007 3:32 PM