It is my great pleasure to bring you the first quarter results from the CEO.CA Stock Picking Contest. It has taken on a life of its own and has provided me with some great inspiration for my own work tracking public opinions about the junior mining industry.

To begin, let me share with you the good news! One of you 'wild-ass speculators' in the CEO.CA Stock Picking Contest will win a gift from @TheGalvanizer himself. It is a beautiful bottle of small-batch scotch (shown in the picture below) with a rich and vibrant history that begins on the Isle of Arran. Two hundred years ago, fifty legal and illegal distillers were operating on the Isle, the majority of them farmers who were seeking to find a use for their leftover barley. Over a hundred and fifty years passed, with the old distilleries all gradually closing,  the final one being Lagg, which shuttered in 1837. Fortunately, in 1993, Isle of Arran Distillers was launched, producing high quality artisan scotch, like the one featured in our contest. The bottle is from the 1996 cask, one of the first batches, with a twelve year cask strength. This is truly a special prize - the lucky winner can savour their win after adding  ice cubes in order to soften this intense scotch.

    


The awesome thing about CEO.CA is it is not just a chat site; it is a community where we all come together to share our ideas and thoughts. We differ in our backgrounds, education, experiences and knowledge, yet we all share this common interest and strive to learn more and to make better investment decisions. And while we continue learning, it is always important to have a little fun!

In December, 2015, the user @guy first mentioned the idea of CEO.CA #stockpickingcontest. He proposed it for the 2016 year, with 43 members participating. Tommy Humphreys, the founder of CEO.CA, actually came out as the winner! The concept for a stock picking contest was an exciting idea that brought everyone together and was an enjoyable collective experience. Unfortunately, there was no mention of the contest again until the end of the year, so I decided to seize the opportunity and see if I could help bring some life into it again for 2017. The major change was that two more contests were added: #bonuspickshowdown and #safeststockpickingcontest aka Safest 2X-Bagger.

First off, I recognized the need to tabulate these stocks for easy sorting. Also, I wanted to update the stock prices weekly to allow everyone to see actively how their portfolios were measuring up. I was a bit nervous and not sure if I was jumping in over my head, but I decided to ask the following question: 

I imagined 20-30 users and it seemed like a simple enough project to tabulate in Excel. Forty-eight hours later, I ended up completely swamped by all of the usernames and their picks. Thanks @Excelsior very much for your help managing things. When the dust finally settled, we had 3 contests, over 150 users and 580 stock picks.  

I think everyone was shocked at the amount of user engagement. People started to see quickly the value of these contests. And with user engagement, comes interesting ideas.

One idea that came up (thanks @bedgrag!) was to track how many people voted for which stock. I created a quick tabulation of the data in a format that is easy to access! Have a look:

https://astronomerb.github.io/CEOtable/stockpickdata.html 

Here is a sample from the link above showing five users who chose $ME Moneta Porcupine.

Now, before we get into the results, I want to throw an idea out to everyone. @Hunter made a stock contest logo, and we've been discussing what we should do. We are thinking of providing each contestant with a coffee mug. What do you guys think? Are you interested? Let us know by commenting on the #stockpickingcontest channel.




1. CEO STOCK PICKING CONTEST

Part of why the results of the the contest have been so well received is the clarity and organization of them. @MiningBookGuy explains:

 "Incredibly, the contest now lives in a far more organized format, with detailed tracking and much more competitiveness. The rules are simple: choose three stocks you own or believe in strongly, and the user with the highest total portfolio gain wins." 

Below is the average portfolio gain during Q1 (first quarter of 2017):

As you can see, we started the year with a 6% gain, then peaked in mid February as possible fears of the PDAC curse set in and people locked in profits. We ended the first quarter with a healthy 22.50% average portfolio gain.  

The top 5 in Q1:

  1. @rjunior               156%          ($OWCP gain of 530%)
  2. @iceman               125%          ($AAZ  gain of 315%)
  3. @raymipo             115%          ($AU   gain of 340%)
  4. @MiningBookGuy   113%          ($AU   gain of 340%)
  5. @PamplonaTrader 102%          ($TK   gain of 148% and $CIO   gain of 119%)

Also, @robby is in 6th place with a total portfolio of 98.55%. I mention this because he stated back on Feb 1:

I want to make a contribution to the #stockpickingcontest. I own a promotional clothing business and would like to offer free custom jackets for the top three winners, just to make it a bit more fun! One more thing, if I'm lucky enough to win (I'm in the runnings but the year is young), I will give a custom jacket and hat to all the 145 people who entered the contest! It's a fun time in the Canadian venture market and I'm glad to share it with you! - @Robby Feb 1st, 2017  https://ceo.ca/@robby?f4bf3ce09d0a


2. THE BONUS PICK SHOWDOWN

"The #BonusPickShowdown Contest actually started as a joke in response to push-back from CEO.CA contributors that additional 2017 stock picks being shared were ineligible for the main Stock Picking Contest, due to the limit of 3 entries. It was clear investors were hungry to share one more Bonus Pick, and it seemed worthwhile to aggregate these additional crowd-sourced stock ideas and enter them into their own contest. The "Showdown" just seemed comical to me at the time and was a reference to both the "Showcase Showdown" on the game show "Price is Right" and the over-the-top bravado of the "Wrestlemania Showdowns" on TV. Who knew we'd get so many Bonus Picks and it would take on a life of its own and become a real Showdown?"  - @excelsior

With 58 contestants submitting their 'higher risk' additional pick, the Contest was expected to be more volatile than the CEO Stock Picking Contest. 

In the first quarter of 2017, it has increased nearly 30%. 

The top 5 for Q1:

  1. @LucTenHave    $AU  340%
  2. @bedrag           $PKK 270%
  3. @IronMan07      $MMJ 175%
  4. @wiz099           $ABR 170%
  5. @Oliver            $RRC 109%


3. THE SAFEST STOCK PICKING CONTEST AKA SAFEST 2X-BAGGER

"I am also thinking of another contest idea. Choose the three 'safest' stocks that will double in 2017." - @EvenPrime
 "You've encouraged me to also enter the #SafestStockPickingContest. I completely agree that there should be a percentage of one's portfolio in the 'safer' companies (if that word can even be used with miners), and these are companies that may be an easy #double or #triple." - @excelsior

Twenty-Eight users submitted their entries into this contest. It has been the best performing contest thus far in 2017, with an average 31.64% portfolio increase - OUTSTANDING! The contest that was intended to be the least risky, is arguably the best performing, while still maintaining its 'safety' status. There were only 2 recorded dates where a user had a negative portfolio gain (March 10th and March 24th), and that was only one contestant. 

The top 5 for Q1:

  1. @LucTenHave  154%   ($AU  gain of 340%  and  $MIO gain of 154%)
  2. @LucaBrasi      86%  ($NXS gain of 194%)        
  3. @Gab              63%   ($NXS gain of 194%)
  4. rorpan             57%   ($LAM gain of 107%)
  5. CriticalInvestor 57%   ($OSK gain of 99%)     


4. CONSOLIDATION AND COMPARISONS

 This final graph provides a comparison of all three stock contests, along with the GDXJ (Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF) and the CDNX (Venture Exchange). 


According to @Goldfinger:

 "In what has been a tricky year for resource stock investors, the CEO.CA Stock Picking Contest picks have outperformed the TSX-V from the start of the year, and even outperformed most mining equity indices for most of the year. I believe this is a testament to the acumen of the CEO.CA community, and I can definitely foresee a 'Stock Picking Contest Portfolio' or Tracking Index coming about next year.
For myself, I can say that I picked stocks that I believed could be 10 baggers this year; however, admittedly, none of my picks were 'safe' (with GXU probably being the safest of the three). I believe that next year we should up the prizes and perhaps even offer the possibility of paying a small entry fee in order to be eligible for an even larger prize. The sky is the limit and the Stock Picking Context has just scratched the surface of what's possible." 

I wanted to provide further analysis of the results but recognized that clarity and simplicity is important for a first go at this (this is my first article). I've updated the Stock Contest Website to include an animated series of weekly gains. 

https://astronomerb.github.io/CEOtable/stockpickingcontest.html

The image above is a screen shot from the Stock Contest Website. Follow the Arrow to download the Excel Spreadsheet Contest Data. 

Please notice there are multiple tabs in each spreadsheet as there is a lot of data (See arrow above). I encourage everyone to examine the files and see what interesting statistics you can find. Feel free to post comments on the #stockpickingcontest channel. 

I'd also like to say thank you to everyone involved in these contests. I've learned so much these last few months and it has been a wonderful experience helping to bring this community together. I want to especially thank @Excelsior @MiningBookGuy @CriticalInvestor @Hunter @TheGalvanizer @HRA-Coffin @Murat and @Goldfinger for all the help they have provided. And a huge thank you to @Newton for keeping me focused and providing guidance.