‘Watch out for falling stocks’ could have been the motto for 2008.After a benchmark-crushing 2006 (powered by Cisco and GM) and repeat performance in 2007 (powered by Google, Mc Donald’s and the oil sector), the Chan family pretend portfolios dove even worse than the overall market in 2008, with the former winners being some of the worst losers except for McDonald’s (+8.47%).  Andrew was the only one with that one and the other winner, Wal-Mart (which Winnie picked up in Nov) at +20.77%.  Naturally, Andrew was the winner overall with a mildly vertigo-inducing fall of -22.24% from Jan 2, 2008 to Jan 2, 2009.

2008 Standings:

Dow Jones Transportation -19.5%

Andrew -22.24%

Dow Jones Utilities -27.42%

Winnie -31.29%

Dow Jones Industrials -31.30%

S&P 100 -35.08%

Gilbert -41.97%

Josiah -48.49%

Each year we add an additional $4000 to the account to be invested.  Gilbert sealed his fate by putting it into Halliburton (-49.42%).  Andrew put most of his into Conoco Phillips (-37.06%) but reduced his losses by selling a few losers during the last few months.  Josiah split his purchases over the first two months, adding to Apple (-52.05%), Conoco Phillips, Fed Ex (-26.08%) and Google (-53.75).  Apple and Google were joined in the half-off Hall of Shame by fellow tech stock Dell (-56.54%) and Josiah’s former scrap-heap bargain GM (-84.97%).  Guess which stock we bought in real life thinking it might be a bargain after dropping almost 70%.

Winnie waited until late summer when the market had dropped significantly but chose Boeing and Burlington Northern/Santa Fe, which saved much of their year’s drop for the last few months.  After seeing Andrew cut his losses by some fall sales and pass Winnie into first place, Josiah did the same in December and missed the slight end-of-year bump, allowing Gilbert to escape the bottom.

Having fixed 2008’s cash interest at 3% probably gave a slight boost to Winnie, but in 2009 the rate will be dropped to a more current 1%.