The Zen Ten Letter
Every December I publish a list of stocks that I believe will outperform the market over the next year. I don't change the list unless a company gets acquired or delisted.
Being locked in for a full year can sometimes be painful when a good company has a temporary stumble and its share price tumbles, as was the case this year with Viacom/CBS. On March 22 this year, VIAC traded at $100 per share. Less than one month later it was changing hands for less than $40 per share. What happened?
It was a double-whammy. First Viacom announced a secondary offering of $3 billion of stock to fund their streaming video plans. Current shareholders were unhappy with the dilution.
Then the next shoe dropped when Archegos Capital Management was “forced by its banks to sell more than $20 billion worth of shares after some positions moved” against the firm. VIAC was among the positions they offloaded.
In case you missed it, here are my top stock picks for 2021. They're off to a good start this year, up 21.0% vs. 15.9% for the S&P 500.
The top performer on this list is EPAM Systems, a Pennsylvania-based global software firm. The only loser is Qualcomm, a semiconductor manufacturer based in San Diego.
I'm gratified that the Zen Ten is off to a good start this year, but we can't assume that this outperformance will continue at this pace. We can assume that these are solid stocks with above-average potential.
2021 YTD performance of all our model portfolios
As of July 2, 12 of our 13 Factor-based models are positive for the year. Factor Rotation is the current leader - up 26.1% YTD.
If you would like to learn more about the Smart portfolios, visit our sister website at stockmarketwhisperer.com
The 10 year performance of all our model portfolios
Over the last ten years, all 13 of our model portfolios are ahead of the S&P 500. These are real portfolios, with real client money invested. There is no backtesting involved here. I also invest in them so I have skin in the game too.
Stay tuned for further updates as the year unfolds. I won't publish updates every week, but I will let you know when something meaningful happens in the market, or in these ten stocks.
(Note: all of these portfolio models are available by subscription with the exception of the Zen Ten which is free to all.)