Tribal Fi Stock Pick Challenge 2023

Here we go again!

It's year three of our stock pick challenge and I don't mind telling you , I'm ready to dominate this mother Hubbard!

The reigning champion, StuffyUncle, with a 100% win rate is entering again so you know this isn't going to be a walk in the park. We've got some old faces as well as some new entrants in this competition so it should be a good race.

Before we get into the first leader board, a quick reminder of the rules.

• The competition runs from 1st March 2023 to 28th February 2024.

• Each entrant has selected one stock from either South Africa, USA or United Kingdom

• I will invest a virtual R100,000 / $5,555 / £4,545 (based on the approximate exchange rates on 1st March) on their behalf in the stock

• The winner will be the entrant with the highest ROI on their virtual investments

• Dividends are not included in the calculation, purely share price growth

• Growth will be measured on a percentage basis

• In the unlikely event of a tie, a full calculation with exact exchange rates, dividends and any other material factors will be taken into consideration to reach a final winner

• Whilst their is a prize for the winner, there is no intrinsic value to it and the competition is purely for fun

• In case of any disputes or similar, Mr H reserves the right to take the final decision regardless of any stated rules. This blog is a dictatorship not a democracy, hahaha

• No kicking, biting or punching below the belt will be tolerated, let's make this a good clean flight ladies and gentlemen!

OK, with that out of the way, to the line-up:

Interestingly, not one UK stock and only 3 JSE listed stocks so the 'merican stocks are leading the way this year. Lets take a quick look at the choices.

Mr H - NIO - Telsa's biggest competitor and largely unknown to most people as they primarily sell their electric cars in China. My rationale here was that NIO's stock price has been falling since the beginning of 2021 and my guess that is a hangover from the COVID issues in China and the global logistics issues for semiconductors. If that problem dissipates, I think this could be a good phoenix from the flames pick. If I'm wrong, I do think the stock is so depressed it might show some resilience. Time will tell

Reef - Caesar's Entertainment - Nothing like the bright lights of Vegas to get the heart pounding and this pick is all about sin city. Caesar has had a bumpy ride but a quick look at the financials shows that profit margins have jumped a massive 65% in the last year so if they can increase revenue and hold that situation, this would be a Full House (excuse the pun)

StuffyUncle - Freyer Battery - Stuffy doesn't disappoint with another obscure pick. Unsurprisingly they make batteries and have a pretty lacklustre performance. A quick bit of research shows they are listed in a group of "potentially undervalued companies" so I suspect Stuffy sees something that might turn around their fortune in 2023.

Ross - Snowflake - One of the new trendy cloud computing companies in the already heavily depressed tech sector. Snowflake is currently not making any profit so if they can post a profit in 2023, that could send the share price soaring.

Charlie - PPC - This SA staple cement producer also sits in the potentially undervalued pot and is showing many of it's indicators supporting that. The global cement shortage has been hard on this industry so my guess is that Charlie sees a resurgence in it's fortunes.

Spike - Tesla - I almost picked this stock myself. Tesla as a company semes to be doing great and effectively owns the EV market in the US, UK & Europe with still no viable challenger emerging. Add to that that Elon Musk effects the share price pretty much every time he tweets and seems to be distracted by Twitter makes this a volatile play and one that in my opinion could go either way. Tesla just smashed their delivery record so if you look at the company in isolation, this is a solid pick.

Lawrence - 4sight - I actually asked Lawrence what drove his pick and it was a mix of rushing to not miss the deadline and some sound logic. The rush can be identified by the fact that 4Sight Holdings is the first company on the JSE listings due to having a 4 in it's name! That said, they have seen a 283% earnings increase in the last year, so if that's not down to an anomaly, that has to push the price forward in 2023.

Shane - Transaction Capital - This is a stock I added to my own portfolio recently as it had a massive +60% drop in share price after some big investors trimmed their holdings. TCP are major investors with some interests in some massive SA organisations so a turnaround could be swift if it's a storm in a teacup but if not, this one could be painful.

And there we are! The runners and riders are off and we're already one month into the competition. Good luck to all entrants and thanks to everyone for taking part. As always I'll update each month with my monthly report and we can track my progress to the winners podium!

Would love to hear if anyone has any comments, predictions or views on this years picks in the comments below.

In the meantime, keep living.