It's not a glamorous business, but it's a necessary (and evidently a profitable) one. Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings (NYSE: LH) earned an unlikely distinction as the top performer in 2000 among our basket of hundreds of stocks. The company provides mostly routine laboratory and testing services, analyzing close to 400,000 specimens each day. 1999 was a very good year for the market and for our faux portfolio, with Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) shares leaping almost 2600% to turn just over $6,500 into more than $175,000. With $175,327 at his disposal, our happy investor scooped up 19,016 shares of LH, trading at $9.22 at the beginning of the 'aughts. Though the market proceeded to tumble, with the tech bubble showing signs of initial weakness as early as March, LabCorp. shares continued higher for the entire year. In fact, the stock peaked on December 28, 2000, before embarking upon a months-long pullback.
By the end of 2000, hanging chads made for a very interesting election outcome and LH shares had gained a total of 377%, closing the year at $44. Our hypothetical hindsight portfolio was now worth $836,704. After four years of absolutely brilliant (read: highly improbable) stock picking, we were closing in on the million-dollar mark.
Next: Step 5: NVIDIA (NVDA), 2001
Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
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