Well, here we are. In our fantasy, self-kicking portfolio that just-so-happened to invest 100% in each year's best-performing stock, we're at the half-billion mark. Just think how much better off we'd be if our 10-year period began in 1988 and capped off with our 2587% rally in Qualcomm! I guess we'll have to settle for a measly $1 billion.... J.K. Rowling is somehow managing to live off a similar fortune.
Here's a review of all the previous steps we took to get to $1 billion:
In 2006, the top stock was Akamai Technologies (again!), but for the sake of variety, we'll look at the first runner-up, Pittsburgh-based steel company Allegheny Technologies (NYSE: ATI). Last year, the stock was in the news after paying $17 million to acquire Garryson Limited from Elliott Industries. At the beginning of 2006, ATI was trading at $36.40. With the dollars in our portfolio, we purchased 12,332,536 shares to hold on to through the end of the year.
Outperformance in the base-metals sector and a strong final quarter helped lift ATI shares to $90.68, closing 2006 with a 149% gain. Lo and behold, our fantasy portfolio stood at $1,118,314,364. More than $1 billion in just 10 years.
As I said at the beginning of this exercise, it's an incredible stroke of good fortune to invest in the best-performing stock of a single year, let alone for 10 years running. So while nothing is impossible, the actions performed by this portfolio come pretty darn close. Still, it's a fun experiment to see that aggressive money management and picture-perfect stock selections can result in massive portfolio growth.
Thanks for reading! Now go figure out what the top stock of 2008 will be and shoot me an email.
The second-to-last stock utilized to turn $100 into more than $1 billion during the course of a decade is SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK), creator of flash memory and removable USB drives. In 2005 (the year the stock outperformed all of its large-cap peers in the basket of stocks we've used for this purpose), SanDisk acquired FlashCP technology through the purchase of Israeli company MDRM.
On the first trading day of 2005, SNDK was hovering at $25.07. Our portfolio, now worth more than $179 million, is able to invest in 7,145,882 shares. For the record, I've switched over to Excel to make these calculations; my calculator has simply run out of digit spaces.
Were it not for the hindsight that allows us to know that SNDK grows to become 2005's top performer, an investor might have bailed out of this trade during the first half of the year. Through mid-July, SNDK moved steadily sideways, trading between the $25 and $30 levels. But a fire of momentum was ignited beneath the shares toward the end of the summer, and a powerful rally ensued. By the year's close, SanDisk shares were trading at $62.82, a 151% advance, which topped the charts. As the calendar turned over to 2006, our portfolio was up to $448,904,325.
After years of profiting from specialized technology and internet concerns, our hypothetical investor returned to basics for 2004. The best-performing stock that election year was Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), the nation's fourth-largest retailer, trailing in size only to Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT), Home Depot (NYSE: HD), and Kroger (NYSE: KR). At the beginning of the year, $43,270,538 was invested in 1,810,483 SHLD shares.
2004 was a pivotal year for Sears as well. In November, the Chicago-based retailing chain announced plans to scoop up the beleaguered Kmart brand. This news helped move even more buying power into Sears shares, which were already enjoying a steady uptrend throughout the year. Though the stock peaked in mid-November, it retained enough of its gains to emerge as the year's winner.
The retailing name ended 2004 at $98.95, up 314% for the year. The portfolio's value was now up to $179,147,269.
Moving toward the light at the end of the bear-market tunnel, our hypothetical investor begins 2003 with more than $7.2 million to invest in what will grow to become that year's top-performing equity, Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), an internet hosting concern founded in 1998. Shortly after a well-received initial public offering in late 1999, AKAM shares took quite a beating, falling from a post-IPO high of $345.50 to rock bottom in October 2002, when the stock was trading at 56 cents per share.
By January 2, 2003, AKAM had worked its way up to $1.80. With the funds in our portfolio, 4,007,600 shares were purchased. A fall rally helped take the shares to $10.76, bringing them high enough to close at the top spot, with a gain of 498%. The portfolio ended 2003 with a value of $43,270,538. Was a billion as far off as it seemed? We were a long way from our original $100, but still far off the mark from the threshold separating us from the Oprahs and Warrens of the world.
Here we are at the halfway point of our experiment to see how fast a portfolio would grow if the perfect stock pick was made each year for 10 years. From $100 invested at the beginning of 1997, we'd begin 2002 with nearly $3.5 million. Winning picks in the first five years of this game have emerged from the Internet, telecom, healthcare, and electronics sectors.
2002 proved to be rock bottom for the U.S. markets and our portfolio, as the best-performing stock rallied "only" 113% during the year. That pick was MEMC Electronic Materials (NYSE: WFR), which manufactures silicon wafers for semiconductor companies. At the turning of the year, WFR was trading at $3.56, and 952,930 shares were scooped up. After its 113% gain, the shares were trading at $7.57, and the portfolio was valued at $7,213,680.
In mid-October, the S&P 500 Index reached what would prove to be a significant market bottom, and buying power was again drifting into the market. Would the renewed sense of bullishness have a positive effect on our portfolio?
Slogging through the tricky market of 2001, when Silicon Valley was imploding and stock investors were no longer printing their own profits, our pitch-perfect fictional investor still managed to keep things solidly in the black. The top performer of the year ended up being NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), manufacturer of graphics processors for use in video cards, computers, and other technology. The stock went public at the end of the previous millennium, in late January 1999. The $836,704 in play after the Laboratory Corp. (NYSE: LH) trade was rolled over into NVDA, acquiring 101,418 shares at an entry price of $8.25 on the first trading day of the year. (Note: Clearly as this exercise continues, were it a real-life trading environment, liquidity concerns could come into play. For the sake of this game, we'll ignore it.). The stock embarked upon a nice rally through early June, stalled throughout the summer and early fall, and took off again at the beginning of November for a strong final two months of the year.
By the time the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, NVIDIA was worth $33.45, a 305% advance. After five immensely profitable years, our portfolio had grown to $3,392,432.
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.
In 1999, teenage girls swooned over the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, the Yankees prepared to nab their 25th World Series title in October, and computer programmers worked late night after late night to ensure against a global "Y2K" crash. Meanwhile, in the fictional world, our hypothetical investor had a portfolio worth $6,532 after purchasing the top-two stocks of 1997 and 1998 -- Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Amazon.com (AMZN), respectively.
Using this modest sum, our investor purchased 1,991 shares of Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), trading at $3.28 at the beginning of 1999. The wireless telecommunications firm had been available for public trading since the early 1990s but had been lacking in vigor. Even the 1997 purchase of the naming rights for the home of the San Diego Chargers did little to cheer the shares. In fact, looking back at a monthly chart, there would be no way to realistically predict that QCOM shares would go on to become the top stock of that very lucrative bull-market year.
And did they ever. During the next 12 months, Qualcomm shares zoomed up to $88.06, an increase of 2587%. Looking back, this would become not only the top stock of 1999, but of the entire 10-year period between 1997 and 2006. The beginning portfolio balance of $6,532 had surged to $175,327 by the time the world rang in the year 2000. Not bad from just $100 in January 1997.
On January 2, 1998, armed with $611 and a dream, our fearless, fortunate, and fake investor put all of his proceeds from a successful outing in Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) into a little online bookseller called Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). It was another fresh pick, having had its initial public offering in May 1997. The stock was trading at $5.00, allowing for the purchase of 122 shares.
The year that saw the debut of Sex & the City and the first album by a young and innocent Mouseketeer by the name of Britney Spears also saw Amazon go on quite a tear. In April 1998, Amazon bought the Internet Movie Database, a consistently visited spot for fans of television and movies. Later that year, AMZN snatched up calendar/address book/reminder service PlanetAll and data-mining concern Junglee.com. Over the course of the year, especially during the final quarter, AMZN shares zoomed higher.
By the end of December, AMZN had increased nearly 10-fold in value and was trading at $53.54, a 971% return. The $611 portfolio from 12 months earlier was now at (roughly) $6,532.
$1 billion in profits in a single decade, beginning with $100 -- how'd we do it? Well, we didn't, otherwise I doubt I'd be sitting here typing this on a beautiful August afternoon. But using the always-reliable benefit of hindsight, we've done a quick study of how an unbelievably astute investor might have become a billionaire overnight (or at least, over the years between 1997 and now).
Let's fire up the flux capacitor and hit 88 miles per hour to return to January 2, 1997. Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) would emerge at the end of that year as the best-performing name among our basket of large-cap stocks (similar to the S&P 500 Index). The internet company had its initial public offering in April 1996, so it was just a pup when the calendar turned to 1997 -- the year of the Spice Girls, Hanson, and Titanic.
With the stock trading at just 71 cents per share, our insightful hypothetical investor took a crisp $100 and bought 141 shares. Less than a quarter into that year, Yahoo! had acquired online communications company Four11, which later evolved into Yahoo! Mail. The stock rallied solidly throughout the year, handily outperforming the broader market and using the support of its 10- and 20-week moving averages.
On December 31, Yahoo! was trading at $4.33, a 511% return. The $100 from the beginning of the year had turned into $611.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. If you'd only bought Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares back in 2003 when they looked downright pathetic. If you'd just dumped your tech stocks in March 2000. If you'd taken the chance on that IPO that earned your high-school boyfriend hundreds of thousands (maybe that's just me).
What if you'd had the crystal-clear foresight (provided only by a crystal ball) that would have allowed you to invest everything in one of the top-performing stocks, each and every year, for 10 years running? The answer -- and it's no exaggeration -- is that an investor who played the game perfectly, beginning with a mere $100 in 1997, would now be a billionaire.
Starting with a basket of hundreds of large-cap stocks (similar to the makeup of the S&P 500 Index) and the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, my loyal data minions at Schaeffer's Investment Research were given $100 in virtual money to invest in the first trading day of 1997. Taking this cash, they invested in what would grow to become the top-performing equity of that year. The original $100 plus the proceeds earned in 1997 were rolled into a new position -- the one that would prove itself as the top pick of 1998. And so on and so forth through the end of 2006.
There was only one repeat on the list -- Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), which outperformed all of its large-cap peers in 2003 and 2006. To keep things interesting and varied, we rear-view-mirror-invested in the second-best stock for 2006.
In this package I reveal what the best stocks were, how they performed, and how the portfolio grew exponentially over the years. This exercise proves it's darn-near impossible to possess the skills to turn $100 into a billion in 10 years. To make a January 2 selection of what will go on to be that year's top equity and then repeat the feat 10 times is unattainable. Not even a 21st-century Nostradamus would be able to accomplish it
Still, it's fun to imagine and to reflect: Who would have known Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) would top the charts in 2004? Was SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) really an easy pick? And what about Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) in 1998? Okay, maybe some astute investors could have seen that one coming.
Well, here we are. In our fantasy, self-kicking portfolio that just-so-happened to invest 100% in each year's best-performing stock, we're at the half-billion mark. Just think how much better off we'd be if our 10-year period began in 1988 and capped off with our 2587% rally in Qualcomm! I guess we'll have to settle for a measly $1 billion.... J.K. Rowling is somehow managing to live off a similar fortune.
The second-to-last stock utilized to turn $100 into more than $1 billion during the course of a decade is 
After years of profiting from specialized technology and internet concerns, our hypothetical investor returned to basics for 2004. The best-performing stock that election year was 
Moving toward the light at the end of the bear-market tunnel, our hypothetical investor begins 2003 with more than $7.2 million to invest in what will grow to become that year's top-performing equity, 
Here we are at the halfway point of 
Slogging through the tricky market of 2001, when Silicon Valley was imploding and stock investors were no longer printing their own profits, our pitch-perfect fictional investor still managed to keep things solidly in the black. The top performer of the year ended up being 
It's not a glamorous business, but it's a necessary (and evidently a profitable) one. 
In 1999, teenage girls swooned over the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, the Yankees prepared to nab their 25th World Series title in October, and computer programmers worked late night after late night to ensure against a global "Y2K" crash. Meanwhile, in the fictional world, our hypothetical investor had a portfolio worth $6,532 after purchasing the top-two stocks of 1997 and 1998 -- 
On January 2, 1998, armed with $611 and a dream, our fearless, fortunate, and fake investor put all of his proceeds from a 
$1 billion in profits in a single decade, beginning with $100 -- how'd we 
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. If you'd only bought 
Best & Worst in Money 2008: Most shocking financial collapse
Closing Bell: Stocks slump as AMD, AT&T, GM and Merck decline
Global Q&A: A rocky road, but profits ahead
