Best and Worst Stocks in 2014

Best and Worst Stocks in 2014

Here are my top stock performers for 2014.

BJ’s Restaurant (BJRI) 61.92%
Ambarella (AMBA) 59.05%
Under Armour (UA) 57.93%
Tesla Motors (TSLA) 47.17%
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) 39.20%
Apple Inc (AAPL) 37.96%
Bidu Inc (BIDU) 31.19%
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) 28.96%

Looking at the list I will point out that BJRI had made my list the last two years as a loser and it’s nice to see my patience and long term timeframe pay off with it being my biggest winner this year. Ambrella is a newer stock for me having first purchased last October and is riding the wave of video.

Under Armour is a favorite of mine and long term they will likely surpass Nike. Telsa and Elon Musk are going to change the world as we know it much faster than expected. Intuitive Surgical and robots will continue to revolutionize the way we do surgery. Apple is a behemoth and is totally ingrained in the way we interact with technology. China is coming online with crazy numbers of users and Bidu is a major player there. Finally Chipotle is completely changing the way we eat fast food and in my opinion are just getting started. They will someday surpass McDonalds in size.

And now for the losers.

3D Systems (DDD) -63.79%
Stratasys (SSYS) -35.57%
Ubiquiti Networks (UBNT) -34.00%
Amazon (AMZN) -22.03%
InvenSense (INVN) – 9.86%
Netflix (NFLX) -7.04%
Solar City (SCTY) – 6.05%

After 2 straight years of being in my top 3, 3D Systems had a rough year. Still 3D printing is in its infancy and 3D Systems and Stratasys will take advantage of this fast growing industry over the long term.

Ubiquity Networks is a small networking company who is making commercial grade equipment and selling it at consumer level prices. It’s users rave about its products and their CEO is pretty smart. Again a long-term winnner.

Amazon – Jeff Bezos will take over the world – end of story. The stock market only concerns themselves with short-term results which he cares nothing about. Keep going Jeff!

The last three aren’t down much but I will mention that despite its massive runup – Netflix has a long ways to go. So while my initial purchase is up nearly 18 times – I expect that long term that initial investment could end up being a 50 bagger.

Solar City like Tesla is going to take advantage of a huge trend of cheap electricity and improved batteries. The world is changing as we speak and these two companies are leading the charge. Just like BlockBuster never saw Netflix coming until they were bankrupt I have a feeling many car companies and utility companies will be the Blockbusters in the next 5-10 years.

While this arbitrary annual exercise really can’t tell you much about my stocks, I like the exercise as I honestly am surprised sometimes by the companies that make the two lists and it gives me a chance to revisit my investment thesis for these companies and hopefully as I look back on past years evaluations I will have learned something about my biases. Obviously right now I am a Elon Musk fan boi, but I honestly feel very strongly about what he is doing and plan to put the bulk of my investment money this year into his companies.