By John Collett
Fairfax journalist Phil Baker wins the four-week Shares Race after making modest gains from a good portion of his 10-stock portfolio to finish with $102,340 from his original $100,000.
Australian share prices overall have ended where they started four weeks ago. Baker is the only tipster to finish the race with more money than he started with.
Credit: Govardhan.Kaka
His best performer is Afterpay, which lets retailers offer consumers a buy-now-pay-later service. It's the fourth-best performer among the contestants' picks.
The Chartist, Richard Pritchard, finishes in second with Mineral Deposits, a mineral sands producer, his best performer.
Kalkine's Hina Chowdhary takes third place with Magnis Resources, the graphite producer, her best pick.
Money reader Bill McLachlan picked the two-best performers from among our tipsters' picks.
His pick of Electro Optic Systems, which producers technology for the aerospace and defence markets, is the best-performing tip of all.
It has research centres in Australia and production facilities in Australia and the United States.
Another pick of his, A2 Milk, which sells premium milk to China, US and Britain and has a 10 per cent share of the Australian fresh milk market, is the second-best pick overall.
McLachlan was unlucky in his timing of AusCann Group, the medicinal cannabis company – the worst-performing stock of all.
It performed strongly after restrictions on importing medical marijuana into Australia were loosened. It appears the reason for the poor performance of the past four weeks was investors deciding to take profits.
The Shares Race is a fantasy shares game. Contestants start with $100,000 across 10 stocks. Next week we will publish an update on the year-long game.