Thursday, January 10, 2008

3 strategies that beat a bad market

From MSN Money:

Think you can't make money while stocks struggle? Here's how three of the top everyday investors did it in the Strategy Lab Open competition – without taking wild risks.

With recession on the forefront of investors' thoughts, those of us running the Strategy Lab Open thought it would be a good time to share some stock strategies from some of our top-performing contestants. These three contestants have shown that a volatile market is no reason to lose money.

Yes, these competitors in the tournament to win a spot alongside the pros in the next round of Strategy Lab are amateurs. But with five-month gains ranging from 34% and 49%, it's clear these stock pickers know what they're doing.

Below are the returns of three of the Strategy Lab Open's top performers compared with the major indexes:

Returns, August 2007 – December 2007
Players Indexes

Sayed Shah

49%

Dow($INX)

-0.7%

James Shao

46.8%

Nasdaq($COMPX)

4.1%

Vad Yazvinski

34.2%

S&P 500($INX)

1.3%

Not too shabby, right? Read on to learn about the strategies behind the gains....MORE