Since my last column in November, the S&P 500 has taken a breather, maybe because the Trump victory rally is running out of steam or his controversial cabinet picks have made the market decide to await his January 20th 2025 inauguration.
The S&P 500 market index is now up 26.85% year-to-date. The market is expecting a Santa Claus rally by the end of December to finish 2024 near or at record numbers. When writing this on the morning of December 18th the S&P 500 finished the day December 17th, 2024 at the level a of 6,050.61 only 49 points or 0.8% from the ATH 6,099.97 reached on December 6th 2024.
2024 (+27%) & 2023 (+26%) have been great years for US stocks
2024 has been another very successful year for my US stock picks. My personal picks have enjoyed great success with few exceptions – in order of the pick:
- September: Nvidia [NASDAQ:NVDA] +181%, YTD +163.3%
- October: Skechers [NYSE:SKX] +41.42% YTD 9.54%
- November: Palantir Technologies [NYSE:PLTR] +318.12% YTD 333.26%
- December: General Dynamics [NYSE:GD] +8.33% YTD
- February: Live Nation Entertainment [NYSE:LYV] +56.6% YTD 47.29%
- March: Meta Platforms [NASDAQ:META] +22.42% YTD 75%
- April: RTX Corp [NYSE:RTX] +17.42% YTD +39.55%
- August: Ralph Lauren [NYSE:RL] +34.08% YTD +58.07%
- September: Agnico Eagle Mines [NYSE:AEM] +2.16% YTD 49.01%
- October: Hasbro [NASDAQ:HAS] -10.22% YTD +17.8%
- November: Goldman Sachs [NYSE:GS] -2.6% YTD +48.9%
S&P 500: YTD +34.02% (all data correct as of 17 December 2024)
Since we started the column in September 2023, we have been able to show that stock picking using fundamental research and analysis can pay off – and you can beat the market with some picks – now five out of eleven picks beating the market, but when equally weighted the five outperformers almost doubled the average return to 60.89% easily beating the S&P 500 index.
Why this column
The main reason I write this column is to prove to all investors (no trading, sorry) young and old that it pays to invest directly in individual stocks and you can beat the market doing this. Exchange Traded Funds and especially index funds give you nice returns, but if you really want to retire early or enjoy your investments profits, my view is you have to invest in single stocks.
I have included YTD % performance in this column from now and will continue to do so. I will also use a very easy investment rule: if the pick does not perform positively into the next quarter from which it is picked, I will sell it (so every stock pick gets four months to turn profitable).
The other rule is that I am strong believer in the “let the winners run and cut the losers early” rule, so if I see that the stock pick is not participating in the market’s positive run – I will cut the stock before it becomes a problem.
- McBride shares up over 20% as dividends are restored
- Short of the Week: D’Ieteren shares sagging under new debt structure
- Polar Capital Technology Trust outpacing the market
Analyzing the portfolio so far
When we further analyze my holdings in the portfolio, we have two stocks, PLTR (318%) and NVDA (182%) as serious outperformers, but with the current Artificial Intelligence boom these two stocks work especially well in this market going forward. NVDA has market cap of $3.19 trillion level, so the returns going forward will be hard to keep up with the market overall, but we will still enjoy the ride, as I wrote in my first column in September, 2023.
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