Happy New Year to all our readers – last year was a tough one in the markets but I can’t complain. My financial situation is better now than it was last year thanks to some aggressive mortgage paydown. In other areas of my life – our son is a year older and is healthy, happy (most of the time) and doing very well. We also celebrated the birth of our daughter in March who is also healthy, happy (most of the time) and progressing quite well.
I also started a new site called ABCs of Investing which deals with very basic investment terms and concepts using 2 short posts per week. A sample post explains exactly what the top down investing method is. Alternatively, a bottoms up investing style might be more to your liking.
A special thanks goes out to Mr. Cheap who bought both my son and daughter a share of BMO each and created a DRIP. A very generous gift and very time consuming as well to set the DRIP up.
So even with the crappy markets – 2008 was a great year!
Stock picks
I entered into a stock picking contest with some other bloggers – who shall rue the day they decided to do battle with Four Pillars! 🙂
Traditionally, the only way to do well with stock picking contests is to swing for the fences and hope for the best. With that in mind I picked 4 small Canadian oil stocks which have been beaten down quite a bit. If oil rebounds next year then these stocks should perform quite well. There are probably better plays on the price of oil but this is the best I could do on 3 minutes of research. Keep in mind these are pretty much random selections – do not consider this a recommendation or any kind of advice!
BCF.to – Bronco Energy $1.27. I started watching this stock a few months ago when it was trading at $10 (it’s now less than $1.50). My Dad saw some analyst recommending it on BNN – great call – down 85%!
HOC.to – Holly Corp $3.65
TOG.to – TriStar Oil and Gas $11.41
CLL.to – Connacher Oil Gas $0.74
The other competitors (click to see their picks)
Dividend Growth Investor stock picks
My Traders Journal stock picks
Where Does All My Money Go stock picks
Intelligent Speculator stock picks
The Financial Blogger stock picks