The petroleum giant is shying from risky exploration and spending money on buying back stock. Over the long haul, those moves could lead the company to go private or disappear.
| Index | 3-month | 1-year | 3-year | 5-year | From Inception* | Avg. Annual Return* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | -3.5% | 9.8% | 75% | 245% | 360% | 14.89% |
| Nasdaq | -14.1% | -5.9% | 14% | 70% | 77% | 6.96% |
| S&P | -9.5% | -5.1% | 12% | 55% | 66% | 5.75% |
| Dow | -7.6% | -1% | 17% | 53% | 77% | 6.07% |
Jim's main portfolio, launched in May 1997, has doubled in the last three years, more than tripled in the past 10 years and continues to beat the major averages by a wide margin.
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Totals through Jan. 4, 2008. Chart updated quarterly. Last portfolio update: Feb. 12, 2008. You can track how the individual stocks are doing here. *Jim Jubak launched this portfolio on May 7, 1997. Average annual return is the annual average compound rate of return for the portfolio calculated from inception.
Please note that Jubak's Picks recommendations are for a 12- to 18-month time horizon. For suggestions to help navigate the treacherous interest-rate environment see Jim's Dividend stocks for income investors. For picks with a truly long-term perspective, see Jubak's 50 best stocks in the world or Future Fantastic 50 Portfolio.
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Jim Jubak is senior markets editor for MSN Money. Previously, he served as senior financial editor at Worth magazine and as editor of Venture magazine. Jubak was a Bagehot Business Journalism Fellow at Columbia University and has written two books: "The Worth Guide to Electronic Investing" and "In the Image of the Brain: Breaking the Barrier Between the Human Mind and Intelligent Machines." As an investor, he says he believes the conventional wisdom is always wrong -- but that he will nonetheless go with the herd if he believes there's a profit to be made. Jubak's Journal appears on MSN Money every Tuesday and Friday. He lives in New York.
A January 2008 independent study by Nielsen NetRatings found more than 1 million people like you look to Jim for advice and commentary. That's nine times as many as any other investment columnist on the Web.
