David Sharek’s Top Ten Conservative Stocks for 2017 rose 23% in 2017, beating the S&P 500’s return of 19% for the year.
“I was pleased with the outcome, but to be frank it was an easy year to make money in stocks” David Sharek, stock portfolio manager for Sharek’s Stock Portfolios said “I’m not trying to beat the S&P with this portfolio. These are safe, dependable stocks. I would have been happy with half that return.”
Winners & Losers
Notables from the list included Alphabet (GOOGL), which gained 33%, UnitedHealth (UNH) which rose 38%, a 46% jump in Visa (V).
CR Bard (BCR) was acquired by Becton, Dickinson (BD) for $332 a share ($223 in cash plus approximately 1/2 share of BD stock) which made its gain $48%.
The worst performing stocks were Celgene (CELG) and AutoZone (AZO) which each lost 10%. “Autozone and Dollar General (DG) were actually sold at lower levels during the year in my Conservative Growth Portfolio. But this is a list that runs from the beginning to the end of the year, and assumes no trading.” Sharek said.
Complete List
Stock (Symbol) 2017 Gain/Loss
Alphabet (GOOGL) +33%
Celgene (CELG) -10%
UnitedHealth (UNH) +38%
Home Depot (HD) +42%
Visa (V) +46%
CR Bard (BCR) +48%
Dollar General (DG) +26%
AutoZone (AZO) -10%
Factset Data Research (FDS) +18%
Starbucks (SBUX) +2%