The first ASOS Challenge was successful in the sense that it taught us a few lessons on investment timing. Only three of 11 shares ended in profit and that included ASOS itself: congratulations to legend for BNH and bosley for SEO. Back to the drawing board for the rest of us (over the year the portfolio would have thrashed any opposition!).

Participants welcome for the second challenge. Primary objective is to find shares that will double in value by 1st July, beating ASC in the process; secondary to be most successful stock-picker in terms of the value of your 20K portfolio. Rules are:

1.Each participant has 20K which can go into 1,2,3 or 4 shares in units of 5K.
2.ASC has 20K and is team yardstick, not in individual portfolios.
3.Duplication between entrants OK with no upper limit for total for one share.
4.Start weekend of 21st Jan. Buy price half way between closing offer and mid.
5.Latest time of entry to be 8 pm on Sunday, 23rd Jan.
6.Challenge to close Friday, 1st July.
7.Entrants can switch up to a total of 10K; av. of Friday close bid and mid.
8.Progress reports to rank shares by performance but also participants (initial only to protect from the ridicule of outsiders!).

Participants welcome. Just post selection here or on ASC thread.

Eric

Well done, Sebastian! Unlucky, Bosley. Stanelco's recent slide has resulted in moi having to settle for 4th. position which means runner/up to Eric for the second time in < 4 days after his Golf Challenge Victory..... gggggrrhh!!!!

Am sending the following to Shares with a covering memo. hoping for some coverage.

"Second ASOS Challenge Portfolio

The First ASOS Challenge Portfolio ran for some three months to January this year and was a straight challenge to find a share that would double faster than ASOS. None actually doubled in the period but there were good attempts from Broker Network Holdings (BNH), Stanelco (SEO) and ASOS (ASC) itself. The other eight shares were in negative territory.

There were 21 participants in the second challenge each having 20,000 to invest in up to four shares in multiples of 5000. The portfolio contained 49 shares with seven 5000 lots in SEO, five in Tandem (TND) and four each in Netellar (NLR), Mediwatch (MDW), Deal Group Media (DGM), BNH, Superscape (SPS) and ASC itself which was taken as a team investment benchmark.

The portfolio gained 11.4% over the 22 week life of the challenge. However, this was effectively accounted for by the gain of the overweight investment in SEO that gained 195%. Other holdings with gains in excess of 100% were Dowgate (DGT), formerly City Finance Associates (CFP), and BTG (BGC).

What lessons can be learnt from the exercise? The author has probably gained most from the weekly process of evaluating the portfolio and suggests the following:

1. Switches were allowed in the portfolio for the first few weeks. The lesson that is clear from the following period is the reinforcement of the maxim to run your profits. This certainly applies to most of the 13 shares with gains over 10% which each appear to have positive on-going prospects.
2. What could not be applied was the maxim to cut your losses. There were major falls in the last week in Augean (AUG), New Millenium Resources (NML), Superscape (SPS) and Profile Media (PMD). 12 shares were down over 30% and there would appear to be warning bells even now with several, not the least PMD with banking threats still applying and the accounts not signed off.
3. Just above this last group in the portfolio are a number of stocks that have made losses over the period but which appear very sound investments. ASC is in this category following a short-term trading blip but with a positive trading statement expected on 11th July. Gaming Corporation (GMC), Pursuit Dynamics (PDX) and BNH would also appear to have very positive prospects: the problem here being with the period selected for the portfolio.
4. Returning to the lead performers there appears to be a number of shares still ripe for investment. SEO, NLR and Healthcare Enterprise Group (HCEG), in particular, receive positive broker recommendations at current levels and are all significantly back from their Highs. BGC, Debt Free Direct (DFD), Ideal Direct (IDS), Monstermob (MOB) and Barr (AG) (BAG) appear steady performers that could well continue to out-perform. DGT is a minnow but, as an AIM NOMAD, its trading performance is transparent (see the MoneyAM bb) and there is very considerable North potential.

The overall conclusion that we had a portfolio with a wide range of shares from stars to dogs is not surprising. The individual challenge is quite clear: firstly, in picking the right share(s); secondly, in timing the trades better than the artificial context of an investment game allows."

Any other conclusions to be drawn?

Sorry about that markus (otherwise known as The Shark - but really he is quite a soft touch!).

Well done Seb, Bos, Eric et al.

Good game, good game as Brucie once said rather monotonously.

Thanks Eric for your sterling work over the last few months

the best of luck to all competitors in the future.

capa

congratulations leaders and thanks to Eric for the hard work from me as well. Enjoyed the game and hope we all try again!!

well done , eric. enjoyed the ride!! congrats to seb, ( you jammy git!)( only joking). watch agl fly now it's too late!!!! i agree with your observation , eric, about running your winners.

Many thanks Eric. The benchmark "tortoise" portfolio did me proud and reflects the sort of gains I have had from good quality second line stocks for many years. No substitute for doing your own research in what I believe is still a good value segment of the market (and getting to a few AGMs if you can).

Eric, thanks very much, much appreciated.

Congratulations to seb, and many thanks to eric for all his hard work in puting the portfolio together.

Cheers,

Daws