TheInstitutional

Marco M. Racca (aka:TheInstitutional) has been playing the markets for more than 20 years. He has been able to achieve superior returns by practicing patience and investing for the long term. He noted, "The identification of longer term trends have a significant impact on my investments. I focus on global trends because global trends are important drivers of cash flows, and cash flow growth is the key driver of share prices long term. Experience has taught me that investments benefiting from these trends carry a significantly lower risk."

The Zacks $100K Challenge player employs a screening strategy that covers the gamut. Marco explained that he looks for sectors or industries that are or will be stronger than the overall market. Solid fundamentals are important to this market player regardless of whether his picks fall under the value category or the growth category. He also wants to see a pick-up in momentum. "I don't want to buy stocks cheap to just hold them even cheaper. I need winners," proclaimed Marco.

This contestant's Simulator portfolio currently includes Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ANPI - Snapshot Report), Genentech Inc. (DNA), streetTRACKS Gold Shares (GLD), iShares Lehman 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT) and UltraShort QQQ ProShares (QID). Check out this player’s complete portfolio by clicking here. Take a look at his entire trading history by clicking here.

What helped catapult his portfolio toward the top?

Marco said that he was looking for opportunity from a global perspective, and it came in late February when China had troubles. After some thorough research, this astute investor determined that China was still a great place to invest. He saw securities such as HNP, SNDA, CYD and GCH, to name a few, as good discounted investments at the time. Marco’s diligent research and prudent stock picking paid off as China recovered. He commented, “the Chinese recovery was almost immediate, and the strong and steady trend that followed made this choice a winner. The whole portfolio had great performance with some holding doubling in price.

How does he know when to sell?

"Since I rank markets, sectors and stocks with quantitative screens if a better opportunity arises, I will decide to sell some of the holdings to make room to new ones,” replied Marco. “Otherwise I sell if the stock reaches its valuation or is becoming a loser. I am tight on money management and in my strategy have levels at which I don't like the stock anymore."

Any advice for beginners?

The savvy investor said, “I think that ETFs are very good investment tools and now they give anyone a broad opportunity to manage money profiting in any market condition without the risk of single stock exposure. I suggest to use good tools like Zacks to make stock selection but also to do your own research.” Marco added that combining fundamentals and momentum has worked well in the past for him. This market player mentioned that regardless of one’s level of knowledge and skill, researching both the fundamentals and momentum yields favorable results.

Click here and receive additional insight from this Simulator competitor by reading his blog.