Admitting to success is a lot easier than failure and when it comes to stocks, not only is there money involved, but also questioning your — or your advisor's — judgment. And then there is the advice you hear in a coffee shop. (More on that later.)
Warren Buffett, the fifth-wealthiest person on the Forbes list, knows his way around stocks, but even he invests in a few clunkers that go with his moneymakers.
Finance website Insider Monkey said his three worst-performing stock picks for 2021 were: StoneCo Ltd (NASDAQ:STNE), a payment and management solutions company, founded in Brazil; Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NYSE:TEVA), a company that manufactures generic drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients, headquartered in Israel; and finally, T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ:TMUS), headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, is a wireless network company.
Of course, Buffett has some winners. Insider Monkey ranked Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), a financial services company, as his top stock for 2021, followed by Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC), a professional services firm, and Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC), one of the largest banks in the U.S.
How well has his own company done? For the past year, the stock price for Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) has ranged from $246.79 to 361.38, and is currently at $358.58. A quick look at the chart on Benzinga Pro and the stock has been climbing — with some speed bumps — for the past year.
What are some of Benzinga's Zinger Nation best picks — and worst?
On Benzinga’s Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) account, @RetiredTennisBum said: “GNSS around 2000- 2022, Flat Panel chips before they became a commodity …. TSLA, my son recommended it and [Cathie] Woods [sic] confirmed it on CNBC while talking heads snickered.” Genasys Inc (NASDAQ:GNSS) is an acoustic device company; Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is a leading EV manufacturer.
@Knörzje 3000 said, “not very popular but Gazprom … payed [sic] sexy dividends over the years while I was waiting for an exit to come.” Gazprom PAO (OTC:OGZPY) is a Russian energy company.
@Benchpressers shared, “@pdsb at .69 in 2020 for cancer and COVID pipeline.” PDS Biotechnology Corp (NASDAQ:PDSB) “was established with the goal of addressing some of the limitations of cancer immunotherapy,” its website stated.
@Alexf24 chimed in, “V at the IPO — dumb luck? Hell no. I knew it would go up. How could it not? That was 2008 — still have a good part of it.” Visa Inc (NYSE:V) raised $17.9 billion in an IPO in 2008.
Worst trades? Taking a look at Benzinga’s Facebook page — and scrolling past the response about “my second wife” — we saw Sire Favour Onis state, “XRP,” which is the native cryptocurrency of Ripple, while Barton Heart said “Shiba was my worst trade! I picked it when I thought it will rise to 1 cent. No! I will never buy it again.” As Shiba Inu (Crypto: SHIB) is at 0.00002882 today, you probably may not want to buy it.
Talking about cryptocurrency, when Benzinga asked its Twitter followers “What bags are you holding?” — for those who don’t know, bag refers to an investment that is poorly performing — and with 477 responses, it seemed at first, there were a plethora of bad choices. Or those really dedicated to their choices, as there were quite a few proud hodlers of Baby Doge (CRYPTO: BabyDoge) or Floki Inu (CRYPTO: FLOKI).
Me? I'm glad I bought Marathon Digital Holding Inc (NASDAQ:MARA) and regret IQIYI Inc – ADR (NASDAQ:IQ), which proved to me to never listen to coffee shop chatter about what a hot stock is.
