In January 1995, I started offering readers a list of 10 stocks to consider for the year ahead, making my selections from the choices of market pros whose opinions I value. In five years of this exercise, my lists returned an annual average of 24 percent, compared with 28 percent for the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. My sabbatical spared me the ignominy of almost certain losses from 2000 to 2001, but I’m back for another try for 2003 – a bit early, so you can do your stock shopping in time for Christmas.
Before we get to the numbers, a few warnings:
1. It’s never easy to beat the market as a whole. Although my picks did pretty well, you would have been better off with an index fund from 1995 to 1999.
2. While the stocks below are selected for their prospective performance over the next 12 months, I do not believe in owning stocks for only a year. Think of this list as a set of ideas for further study and, among the 10, search for the companies you want to own forever.
3. As it turned out, the portfolio is weighted toward smaller stocks, perhaps because they are simply more interesting than the big brand-name companies. The final list is well balanced by sector, but it includes four large-caps, four mid-caps and two small-caps.
4. No guarantees.
Here, then, is the list for 2003, in alphabetical order . . .
