2017 stock picking competition — February update

Time for our first update on the Sharesight & Livewire stock picking competition!

Back in December 2016 we sent the call out for your picks for the 2017 calendar year. We’re comparing the performance of the most popular picks from the Sharesight customer base, the Livewire readership, and some of Australia’s top fund managers -- and of course tracking them in Sharesight.

Here are the portfolios for each group, which consist of the 5 stocks that received the most votes:

Sharesight customer picks

Livewire reader picks

Fund Manager picks

Performance since 1 January 2017

So far the Sharesight customers are outperforming both the Livewire readers and the expert fund managers. The Sharesight portfolio is also the only portfolio to have so far beaten the ASX 200 (as tracked by the ETF STW):

The best performer in the Sharesight portfolio has been Vocus Group, returning over 18%. The worst performer has been Retail Food Group, down nearly 9%.

For Livewire, the best performer has been BHP, delivering over 3%. The worst performer has been Altium, losing almost 8%.

And for the Fund Managers, their best pick has so far been Imdex, producing over 16% gain with Event Hospitality down almost 11%.

Portfolio notes

• We’ve "invested" $100,000 in each holding while assuming a brokerage fee for each buy transaction of $9.95.
• All dividends are/will be included in the total performance calculation, and are reinvested. Total performance also factors in currency effects.
• Performance figures are total return (versus annualised) as none of the portfolio positions has been held for longer than one year.
• The benchmark return figure assumes that all $500,000 was invested in the benchmark ETF.

All articles in this series

• 2017 stock picking competition
• 2017 stock picking competition - survey results
• 2017 stock picking competition - February update
• 2017 stock picking competition - April update
• 2017 stock picking competition - July update
• 2017 stock picking competition - October update
• 2017 stock picking competition — final results

FURTHER READING

• Blog -- How your broker’s performance numbers mislead you
• Blog -- How much money can Sharesight save you?
• Blog -- 7 reasons why Sharesight is better than a spreadsheet