The man who mastered the monkey
CURIOUS INVESTOR | Woodstock's Robert Boyd bests field of more than 600 by record margin
Meet Robert Boyd, 54, who doesn't play around with stocks much, and admits the business-channel chatter he picks up just confuses him.
Boyd is a furniture store manager and former social studies and math teacher. But he's also a champion stock-picker, regardless of how he rates his analytical prowess.
(Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times)
Send us your favorite stock, and we'll track its performance all year. You'll win if your stock has the greatest percentage gain in 2008 of all the entries.
The winner will get a seven-night trip for two to Iberostar Paraiso Del Mar in Riviera Maya, Mexico, courtesy of Apple Vacations, America's Favorite Vacation Company.
The deadline for entries e-mailed to monkey@suntimes.com is 5 p.m. Jan. 7. That's also the postmark deadline for mailed entries.
See the full rules at suntimes.com/monkeymanager.
A Woodstock resident, Boyd is the winner of the Sun-Times' 2007 Monkey Manager stock-picking contest. Out of more than 600 entries, he submitted the stock that during 2007 gained the most in percentage terms.
His guess: Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., which advanced 425.7 percent during 2007, and won the contest, now in its seventh year, by a record margin. The second-place finisher was Annette Lamon of River Forest with the pick China Eastern Airlines, up 348.4 percent.
They led an array of great picks from Sun-Times readers, who this year taught a thing or two to the contest's mascot, Mr. Adam Monk. He's the Sun-Times' stock-picking monkey whose five-stock portfolio this year rose 3.1 percent, compared with a 3.5 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 6.4 percent for 2007 while the Nasdaq composite index rose 9.8 percent. Mr. Monk trailed the overall market for the first time in the contest's five years.
Boyd wins a seven-night trip for two to Gran Bahai Principe Tulum in Riviera Maya, Mexico. The trip is courtesy of Apple Vacations.
You could succeed him in the winner's circle next year at this time. The 2008 edition of the Monkey Manager stock-picking contest is now open.
Lamon, the No. 2 finisher, led the contest much of the year, but her stock faded in the fall while Boyd's kept coming.
Onyx advanced on the strength of positive results for its experimental drug Nexavar, which it is developing with Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals. Its success with the treatment for liver and kidney cancer caused speculation that Bayer will buy Onyx.
What led Boyd to the stock? Close analysis? A careful reading of Food and Drug Administration data?
"It was strictly blind luck," he said.
Boyd said he went with a drug company for the contest because they either score big hits or misses, depending on clinical trials. But he didn't put hard money behind his stock selection.
While he said he doesn't invest beyond mutual and retirement funds and money market accounts, Boyd said stock investors should stick with a couple long-term trends.
"Anything with health care is the place to go because the population is aging," he said. "And oil companies always seem to make money."
Boyd manages the Furniture Box, a store that opened Dec. 14 in Crystal Lake. He said he's worked for the now four-store chain for six years.
The Furniture Box deals in new and mostly ready-to-assemble furniture for bedroom, office and home entertainment uses.
Boyd and his wife, Elizabeth, have been married for 30 years, and they have two sons. He grew up near Comiskey Park, and has taken his love of the White Sox to McHenry County.
He plans to make his trip a family affair, and said everyone in his household is looking forward to it.
Maybe the family will lobby him to follow up on his hunches with actual investments.