Best Performing Stocks of the Past Quarter

Submitted By Trader Mark
It has been an amazing run, as I've stated in previous missives the only move like this that I can recall of similar ilk was in late fall, early winter 1999 at the height of the internet boom. I believe we are now in week 11, with only 1 week down materially (1 week was flat, and the rest up).

As the 200 day and 20 day moving averages converge on our major indexes it appears we could be setting up for a material move in the indexes soon - either another leg up, or a potential reversal. Or maybe we'll surprise everyone and just go sideways for another 2 months. Either way, as we sit today I thought it would be interesting to look at the biggest winners by different market capitalizations over the past quarter (90 days). [Market capitalization is just a fancy way to say "size" of the company]

While "labels" are relatively arbitrary I've split the groups like this

Mega Cap >$50 Billion
Large Cap >$3 Billion but <$50 Billion
Mid Cap >$1 Billion but <$3 Billion
Small Cap >$250 Million but <$1 Billion

I left out Micro Cap which is where the real wild action has been.

Outside of that the only other parameters I kept was to stick to stocks with decent volume (>200K shares traded a day) and >$10 stock price (again arbitrary but this removes a lot of the $1-$3 fluff that is the domain of daytraders)

Let's call this a "I wish" list as in... I wish I had been invested in these stocks, and had bought near the exact bottom and resisted the urge to sell even as I made 30, 50, 70% in a mere matter of months :) In each group I listed the top 10 performers and your return (average) if you had invested equally in each.

As would be expected the smaller you get, the larger the returns as there are more names, and huge rallies can move smaller fare much easier. And of course many of our old holdings litter the landscape - hello A-Power Energy (APWR), Trina Solar (TSL), LDK Solar (LDK), Yingli Green Energy (YGE), Sterlite Industries (SLT) and ICICI Bank (IBN). We've not owned Dendreaon (DNDN) but one of our lucky readers hit the jackpot there. Can we read much into the list overall? Not really - much of it is the most beaten down of financials, auto related, and alternative energy plays.... many left for dead in the winter of February and March. If you had told me oil would be north of $70 already, I would of went 100% solar energy on March 6th - even if the companies are hemoraging money. I did look at quite a few auto dealers but focused on Auto Nation (AN) and Karmax (KMX); not the ones below. Never pulled the trigger as I was focused on valuations. Bank of Ireland (IRE)? Not so much.

Mega Caps: 77.5% Average

Symbol Company Name % Price Mkt Cap BAC Bank of America Corp 121.7 83,046 CS Credit Suisse Group ADR 85.8 54,255 STD Banco Santander ADR 80.6 92,648 RTP Rio Tinto ADR 80.4 68,245 HBC HSBC ADR 79.8 156,698 WFC Wells Fargo & Co 79.4 106,682 OGZPY Gazprom Rep 4 Ord Shs EDR 69.2 139,906 PTR Petrochina Depository Receipt 68.7 224,713 SLB Schlumberger NV 55.6 74,393 CEO CNOOC ADR 53.6 63,301
AVERAGE 77.5

Large Caps: 285.0% Return (thanks Bank of Ireland)

Symbol Company Name % Price Mkt Cap IRE Bank Of Ireland ADR 882.8 3,158 TCK Teck Resources Ltd 378.5 9,104 BCS Barclays ADR 352.3 41,748 XL XL Capital Ltd 200.5 4,040 SLT Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd 184.3 10,512 TX Ternium SA 174.9 3,737 TTM Tata Motors ADR 173.4 4,758 IBN ICICI Bank ADR 171.3 17,742 ING ING Groep ADR 167.1 22,288 IP International Paper Co 165.2 6,716
AVERAGE
285.0

Mid Caps: 294.1% Return

Symbol Company Name % Price Mkt Cap DNDN Dendreon Corp 650.0 2,587 ASH Ashland Inc 286.7 2,088 AGO Assured Guaranty Ltd 285.0 1,373 CEDC Central European Distribution 266.4 1,584 TIN Temple-Inland Inc 264.2 1,377 YGE Yingli Green Energy Holding 254.6 1,895 FDML Federal Mogul Corp 248.6 1,105 CETV Central European Media Entprise 233.2 1,306 LDK LDK Solar Co Ltd 227.0 1,494 AKS AK Steel Holding Corp 225.7 2,310
AVERAGE 294.1

Small Caps: 467.1% Return

Symbol Company Name % Price Change Last Qtr. VNDA Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc 1,465.6 329 SAH Sonic Automotive Inc 696.3 432 ABG Asbury Automotive Group 459.2 383 FUQI Fuqi International Inc 359.4 381 CSIQ Canadian Solar Inc 343.1 561 CLMS Calamos Asset Management 298.6 289 APWR A Power Energy 274.7 446 PPO Polypore International Inc 259.5 496 SPAR Spartan Motors Inc 258.6 365 TSL Trina Solar Ltd 256.2 771
AVERAGE 467.1

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