I choose Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM) as my stock for the ibankcoin.com 2008 March Madness stock tournament after reading about it on Rajin’ Cajun’s blog (formerly known as Madstocks blog). It’s all in good fun as I typically avoid contests because they make me do things I might not do otherwise (like trade and root for a stock based on a pick rather than reality).
I picked RIMM for several reasons:
- I don’t own shares at this time so I can be objective
- Q4 ends on March 1, 2008 with a reporting date of April 2, 2008 (spans contest)
- The chart is currently bullish (daily and weekly)
We’ll see how I do. A blow out earnings date that hits the wire early gives me great odds and the market is always about odds (I looked at this competition from a poker player’s perspective rather than a pure investor/ trader). The odds are strong for good news prior to the official earnings release in April.
I thought about going short, with several stocks in mind, including Chipotle Mexican grill (CMG) but figured I historically do better with long positions. The market in general will be a huge influence during the contest. A down market will severely hurt my chances to win.
Recent Posts with RIMM highlighted:
This is off-topic, but has anyone else noticed that IBD Industry Group names have changed starting with publication date 02/12/2008? I have noticed that the old names compared to the new have changed in most cases to accomodate the spacing issue, but in the process, the new naming convention has caused some of these to not slot properly with their sister Industry Groups.
Example:
Old Style (2/11/08) and prior
Beverages-Alcoholic
Beverages-SoftDrinks
New Style (starting 2/12/08 and after)
Beverages-Alcoholic
Bvrages–SftDrink
This causes Bvrages to shift down when doing a sort on the Industry Group names and is no longer grouped with Beverages-Alcoholic. Please double check your data to make sure you noticed this change – especially if you are storing data in your spreadsheets, otherwise, you are putting incorrect data for the wrong industry groups because of the shifts occuring.
I submitted a question to the IBD Help asking what can be done to address this. If others make a complaint as well, maybe this can get resolved sooner – otherwise, we will just have to go through to fix our data.
Thanks
Hey Steven,
I certainly did notice this and it has screwed up some of my data sheets as well. I think it is a good idea to complain to IBD.
I usually agree with the changes IBD makes (over the years) but sometimes they make decisions as if they don’t use their own product (from a user standpoint).
Complaint filed. Lets see if IBD makes the changes or not. In the meantime, I am synching up my data by adding the new columns compared to the old so that I can run the new “screwed” up IBD listing with my older macros in place. This will probably end up in the blackhole…
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Dear Steven
Thank you for your email.
We appreciate your feedback. A copy of your email has been forwarded to our development committee. The feedback that we receive from our subscribers plays a significant role in the planning for future product enhancements.
Feel free to contact us in the future if you have more comments or questions.
Sincerely,
Tony
Investor’s Business Daily
http://www.investors.com
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For anyone wondering what a sample of the new Industry Groups look like, then goto this link:
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/8577/newindustrygroupsdl7.jpg
A few things to note with what you see so far.
1) I had to manually copy all previous data to synch up to the current new industry group listing (still working down the list),don’t think there exists a direct match. This screen shot shows the linkage that I had to create.
2) Notice how there are 3 variations of Commercial Services alone now. The old was called CommlSvcs. The new now has:
CmmlSvcs
ComlSvcs
CommlSvcs
It should clearly be seen that Commerical Service sister groups no longer group together as a result of Computer groups creating the division.
3) The old Computer group is now represented by the following 4 variations and no longer group together as well:
Cmpter
Cmptr
Compter
Comptr
And it just gets even more ridiculous after that point exhibiting the same issues as you work down the list.
We don’t need all these variations – there are much better suggestions that could have kept the industry groups synched in their respective alphabetical sort positions.
If you are tracking IBD Industry Group information, please take time to file a formal complaint.
Thanks,
Steven