LET THE INVESTING COMMENCE; LATEST STOCK CONTEST OFF AND RUNNING.Byline: Deborah Adamson Staff Writer If anyone had predicted that Thelma Lyden would become an avid investor someday, she wouldn't have believed it. ``If someone told me that I would be doing this, I would say they're nuts,'' said the 49-year-old credit manager from Camarillo. But in the past two years, she has started an investment club, invested her family's money and traded on margin. She has gotten so hooked on the market that for her birthday, instead of getting frilly frill n. 1. A ruffled, gathered, or pleated border or projection, such as a fabric edge used to trim clothing or a curled paper strip for decorating the end of the bone of a piece of meat. 2. lingerie or jewelry from her husband, she received a subscription to Investor's Business Daily Investor's Business Daily (IBD) is a national newspaper in the United States, published Monday through Friday, that covers international business, finance, and the global economy. Founded in 1984 by William O'Neil, its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California. . During coffee breaks at work, she calls her broker to check on her stocks. Now, she's taking another step: Lyden will test her investment prowess against five other contestants in the Daily News Stock Picking Contest. Starting today, the Daily News kicks off its sixth semiannual contest in which each participant receives a fictitious $100,000 to invest. They can trade as many as 10 stocks, but no other securities are allowed. They cannot short, trade on margin or play options. After six months, whoever has the most money wins the contest - along with his or her 15 minutes of fame. What prompted Lyden to start learning about investing was an article about an investment club made up of regular folks that beat the famed Beardstown Ladies The Beardstown Ladies were a group of older women who formed an investment club, formally known as the Beardstown Business and Professional Women's Investment Club, in Beardstown, Illinois, USA. of Beardstown, Ill., a group of senior citizen investors. ``I thought, if they can do it, I can do it,'' Lyden said. She invited 25 people to meet over lunch, sowing the seeds for her investment club. After the group was formed, Lyden also decided to invest on her own. Her first buy was Ocular Science. She purchased 100 shares at $19 a share and sold them for $29 in six months, making a cool $1,000 before commissions. Since then, ``I was hooked,'' Lyden confessed. Her picks for the contest are America Online See AOL. , Best Buy, Cisco, EMC (1) (EMC Corporation, Hopkinton, MA, www.emc.com) The leading supplier of storage products for midrange computers and mainframes. Founded in 1979 by Richard J. Egan and Roger Marino, EMC has developed advanced storage and retrieval technologies for the world's largest companies. , Inktomi, Lucent, Microsoft, Tyco, Wal-Mart and Yahoo! When frustrated motorists stuck in rush-hour traffic catch a glimpse Verb 1. catch a glimpse - see something for a brief time catch sight, get a look see - perceive by sight or have the power to perceive by sight; "You have to be a good observer to see all the details"; "Can you see the bird in that tree?"; "He is blind--he of Bernard Yoo as he zooms past them on his motorcycle, they probably don't think that he's a self-described computer geek (jargon) computer geek - (Or "turbo nerd", "turbo geek") One who eats (computer) bugs for a living. One who fulfils all the dreariest negative stereotypes about hackers: an asocial, malodourous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. and rocket scientist Rocket Scientist In the world of finance, these are people with science and math degrees who work in the finance field building highly advanced quantitative finance models. These models help banking, insurance and investment firms to price financial instruments. . The 24-year-old systems engineer exchanged his car for a motorcycle after he got tired of fighting traffic. ``For a year, I was sitting in traffic watching motorcycles pass me by. So I had a brilliant idea - I would be one of them,'' Yoo said. His 35-mile trek to work isn't the only adventure he faces. The engineer also loves to invest. He considered the stock market after landing a good job. ``I was getting a nice salary for the first time in my life and I wanted to do something useful with it,'' Yoo said. The Granada Hills resident prefers to invest in familiar companies with clear, long-term goals Long-term goals Financial goals expected to be accomplished in five years or longer. . He's particularly enamored en·am·or tr.v. en·am·ored, en·am·or·ing, en·am·ors To inspire with love; captivate: was enamored of the beautiful dancer; were enamored with the charming island. with IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , whose chief Lou Gerstner had a broad vision for the company that is now paying off. His goal for the contest, he says, is to ``just have fun. It's an opportunity to learn about new stocks.'' How does he expect to fare? ``I don't think I'm going to win because I'm not a big risk taker tak·er n. One that takes or takes up something, such as a wager or purchase: There were no takers on the bets. taker Noun . But I don't think I'll do that poorly. I'm not picking stocks randomly,'' Yoo said. His picks? IBM, Apple, AT&T, Ford, Exar, Corel and Weatherford International Weatherford International Ltd (NYSE: WFT) is one of the world's largest diversified upstream oilfield service companies. Weatherford provides services ranging from directional drilling, open and cased-hole wireline logging to underbalanced systems expertise, drilling, . Yoo may not expect to win, but 19-year-old Sean Williams
Sean Llewellyn Williams (born 1967) is a New York Times best selling science fiction author who lives in Adelaide, Australia. thinks he might. In his e-mail application for the contest, the college student from Panorama City wrote, ``not to sound overconfident o·ver·con·fi·dent adj. Excessively confident; presumptuous. o  ver·con , but I feel I have almost an assured chance of winning because I have played these games now for too long.'' In one online stock contest, he once placed second out of 53,000 players after turning $500,000 into $38 million in two months. In other stock picking contests, he says he usually ends up among the top 10. That's especially remarkable given that Williams has never invested for real. ``College and my car takes all my money,'' the college junior explained. Williams first became interested in stocks after his team at Van Nuys High School Van Nuys High School (VNHS) established in 1914, is a high school in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles, California, belonging to the Los Angeles Unified School District: District 2. came in second in a stock market game instigated by a teacher. ``I love it, the competitive nature of it,'' the budding veterinarian veterinarian /vet·er·i·nar·i·an/ (vet?er-i-nar´e-an) a person trained and authorized to practice veterinary medicine and surgery; a doctor of veterinary medicine. vet·er·i·nar·i·an n. said. For the contest, Williams has invested his money in Salton Corp., RF Microdevices, Transwitch Corp., Tarrant Apparel Group, Medimmune, Mindspring Enterprises and Netbank. ``I don't particularly like the bellwether companies,'' he said. ``I'm looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. those who will bust out "Bust Out" is the twenty-third episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the tenth of the show's second season. It was written by Frank Renzulli, Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, directed by John Patterson and originally aired on Sunday March 19 2000. and make 200 percent. Large-company stocks will give you 20 percent a year - but do I really want 20 percent?'' Fred Fowlks, a firefighter, thinks Williams succeeds in investment contests in part because he lacks experience with actual trades. Since he has never lost real money in the market, the teen has no fear of playing, Fowlks surmises. Fowlks has been investing for seven years. In the contest, the 41-year-old Sylmar resident hopes to compare two investment strategies: The CANSLIM method by William O'Neil
He prefers to buy companies whose quarterly earnings per share rise by at least 30 percent. He tries to buy soon after a stock emerges out of a sideways movement - also called a base - for at least seven weeks. Fowlks' contest choices? Ciber Inc. and Elan Corp., for now. Jonathan Martinez's initiation into investing began like most working people's: he put money into mutual funds in his company's 401(k) plan. Although Martinez has never bought an individual stock, he likes to monitor companies he might one day buy. Through the contest, he hopes to learn more about the stock market. ``I'm trying to get my feet wet, see how well I could do, and maybe this would push me into doing it on my own,'' said the 32-year-old Palmdale CIS Cis (sĭs), same as Kish (1.) (1) (CompuServe Information Service) See CompuServe. (2) (Card Information S analyst. ``I feel pretty confident (about the contest),'' he added. ``I see myself starting conservatively and getting riskier as time goes on.'' His contest entries: Dell, Adobe Systems, Earthlink, Gap, Kaufman and Broad, Lucent, Mindspring Enterprises, Pfizer and SmithKline Beecham. The sixth contestant is Leona Lott, a 57-year-old retiree from Northridge. She began investing in the early 1990s, starting with mutual funds. Gradually, she branched out into individual stocks even though she felt it was riskier. ``I thought I would never buy individual stocks because I was fearful,'' said the retired Superior Court clerk. But she ``saw the potential of the markets.'' Today, she considers investing her hobby, along with playing tennis. ``I've been catching up on things I haven't done in the last 15 years,'' she said. Lott's lot: Cash. All $100,000 will be parked in cash for the meantime, until the market settles down. DAILY NEWS STOCK PICKING CONTEST THE GAME: Five investors from aound the region are managing fictitious portfolios that stood at $100,000 today. Contestants can buy and sell daily, but each transaction costs Transaction Costs Costs incurred when buying or selling securities. These include brokers' commissions and spreads (the difference between the price the dealer paid for a security and the price they can sell it). $50. The portfolios are limited to stocks traded on the nation's major exchanges THE PAYOFF: Whoever has the largest portfolio at the end of February stands tallest. NAME: Fred Fowlks STOCK PORTFOLIO: Ciber Inc., 500 shares; Elan Corp., 500 shares. VALUE THIS MORNING: $99,900 (includes $73,150 in cash). NAME: Leona Lott STOCK PORTFOLIO: All cash. VALUE THIS MORNING: $100,000 in cash. NAME: Thelma Lyden STOCK PORTFOLIO: America Online, 105 shares; Best Buy, 137 shares; Cisco, 155 shares; EMC, 166 shares; Inktomi, 88 shares; Lucent, 157 shares; Microsoft, 119 shares; Tyco, 97 shares; Wal-Mart, 213 shares; Yahoo! 68 shares. VALUE THIS MORNING: $99,500 (includes $45.25 in cash). NAME: Jonathan Martinez STOCK PORTFOLIO: Adobe Systems, 101 shares; Dell, 345 shares; Earthlink, 218 shares; Gap, 279 shares; Kaufman and Broad, 465 shares; Lucent, 156 shares; Mindspring, 331 shares; Pfizer, 404 shares; SmithKline Beecham, 151 shares. VALUE THIS MORNING: $99,550 (includes $5.63 in cash). NAME: Sean Williams STOCK PORTFOLIO: Medimmune, 200 shares; Mindspring, 250 shares; Netbank, 500 shares; RF Microdevices, 329 shares; Salton Corp., 800 shares; Tarrant Apparel Group, 500 shares; Transwitch, 300 shares. VALUE THIS MORNING: $99,650 (includes $41.37 in cash). NAME: Bernard Yoo STOCK PORTFOLIO: Apple, 345 shares; Corel, 2,250 shares; Exar, 335 shares; Ford, 105 shares; IBM, 165 shares; AT&T, 100 shares; Weatherford International, 500 shares. VALUE THIS MORNING: $99,650 (includes $10,320.62 in cash). CAPTION(S): 12 Photos, Box Photo: (1--Color) Bernard Yoo systems engineer Granada Hills (2--Color) Jonathan Martinez CIS analyst Palmdale (3--Color) Leona Lott retiree Northridge (4--Color) Sean Williams student Panorama City (5--Color) Thelma Lyden credit manager Camarillo (6--Color) Fred Fowlks firefighter Sylmar (7) Fred Fowlks (8) Leona Lott (9) Thelma Lyden (10) Jonathan Martinez (11) Sean Williams (12) Bernard Yoo Box: DAILY NEWS STOCK PICKING CONTEST (See text) |
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