Best Performing Stocks of the Last Quarter

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:

1. Mega Cap >$50 Billion
2. Large Cap >$3 Billion but <$50 Billion
3. Mid Cap >$1 Billion but <$3 Billion
4. 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 an "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) [May 27, 2009: A-Power Energy Hires CFO - The Stock that Got Away], Trina Solar (TSL), (once our largest position) LDK Solar (LDK), Yingli Green Energy (YGE), Sterlite Industries (SLT) [Jun 11, 2009: Reintroducing Sterlite Industries] and ICICI Bank (IBN). We've not owned Dendreon (DNDN, but one of our lucky readers hit the jackpot there. [How One Reader Found Dendreon]

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 have gone 100% solar energy on March 6th - even if the companies are hemorrhaging 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

Comments

[Sovestor]

Clearly, the smaller cap companies on aggregate perform much better than the bigger cap companies. This is expected and should be a good hint what will likely to happen in the next five years: small cap indexes most likely will outperform large cap indexes. Very easy trend, very obvious.

2009 Jun 15 12:00 PM

[Alphameister]

APWR is providing another decent entry point on today's report of disappointing first-quarter earnings. Management raised its forecast of full-year results (based entirely on current contract backlog) and virtually promised higher estimates throughout the year as new contracts are signed. I'll be adding to my stake on this pullback to support.

2009 Jun 16 08:55 AM

[chleoku]

Our recession portfolio is also doing prettty good in the last couple month. Check this out:

www.wealthalchemist.co.../

2009 Jun 16 08:24 PM

[Davidpeers]

I too will be adding to my APWR position at the 9 dollar level!! Was wondering if I would get the chance...Well, here it is, and I don't think it will be in single didgits very long??

2009 Jun 17 01:10 AM