As we welcome the new year, its time to look back and evaluate some of our investment picks/decisions. At the end of 2017, I reached out to the investing community and asked them to pick one investment security as their top pick for the year 2018. Plenty of folks responded and I was happy to compile the list and track them over the year. The original post can be found here. Picks from previous years are indexed on this page. It is always interesting to see what everyone was thinking a year ago and how the picks played out over the year.
Again, I would like to remind readers that this was meant to simply be a fun exercise and should not be considered investment advise. Please do your own research before investing in any securities.
Without further ado, here is the list and details of how the investment performed over the year. I have also included each investor’s original quote from a year ago to provide some context.
The Top 3
2018 was a year to be forgotten by stock/fund/crypto pickers. All except 3 picks ended up with negative returns for the year.
#1 Canopy Growth Corp (TSE:WEED) by Tawcan
For the second year in a row, this stock has topped the pick! Canopy Growth Corp had a great year in 2017 with a 225% return, and 2018 turned into another great year for shareholders. After a stellar 2016 and 2017, I personally didn’t expect Canopy to keep rising and outperform the rest of the picks, but here you have it. Tawcan had the following to say when he made the pick at the start of 2018.
“With a ticker name of WEED and legalization in Canada coming up. Why not?”
Total return: 23.1%
#2 McDonalds Corp by Future Freedom Club
McDonalds coming in at the #2 spot for 2018. Reliable, dependable, dividend grower, worldwide brand recognition. What’s not to like? Future Freedom Club made a great call with this and had the following to say when making the pick:
“Tax rate being lowered from above 33% closer to 20%. Recent modernization strategies such as kiosks and mobile ordering seem to be going well.”
Total return: 5.6%
#3 Walt Disney Co by My Journey to Millions
Disney makes the best content and hooks customers for life. Their shows, movies and recreation parks keep the cash flow going for the company. My Journey to Millions had the following to say about the pick:
“Content is King and soon enough they’ll own it all!”
Total return: 3.59%
There you have it folks. The only 3 picks from the year that ended up in the green. Congrats on the investors who picked the stock and made saw some great returns over the year.
Rest of the Results
2018 was a not a good year for the rest of the pickers. The full set of picks from all the investors are listed below.
My pick is way down at the bottom after picking a cryptocurrency. I picked Ether (ETH) for the year, right at the top of the bubble and got burned for that pick. The security is down 81% for the year! Its a good thing that I didn’t take my own advise and just had a very small investment in ETH (a couple of hundred dollars). I’m hoping to make a more sensible pick in 2019 
Coming Up: Top 2019 Picks
I have reached out for the top 2019 picks and the picks are streaming in. I intend to share the picks with the readers later this week.
Disclosure: Our full list of holdings is available here.
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