KEY POINTS:
It has been a roller-coaster of a year on the market.
Like the amusement park ride, the market has ended up basically back where it started the year. Unlike a roller-coaster - the results have been somewhat less than amusing.
So after three years of stellar returns, the annual Business Herald Brokers' Picks competition this year highlights the volatility in the market.
Before attributing too much weight to the results, readers should remember that this format is really a game. It is designed to promote discussion about the year that's been and to generate ideas about how 2008 may play out.
When it gets down to the real business of investing, broking firms don't pick stocks at the start of the year and stick to them for exactly 12 months - neither should you.
Most firms take both a shorter-term and a longer-term view .
In the active short-term mode, these portfolios would have adjusted during the year to weed out stocks which had deteriorating outlooks. Other portfolios are designed for long-term returns - to ride through bad years. A five-year investment view is more typical. The results of this competition over a five-year term will appear in tomorrow's paper.
But the 12-month results do make an interesting snapshot of the rocky year that has been.
Direct Broking - a firm that doesn't actually run its own research division - came out on top this year.
But it is telling that its return of 15.5 per cent is actually lower than the worst-performing portfolio in last year's competition.
