At the start of 2015, inspired by stockopedias ‘NAPs’ i put together a portfolio of companies i thought would do well in 2015 based on high stock ranks, recommendations from respected investors and my own research. It’s a fantasy fund but the idea being that i wouldn’t tinker, by or sell, but would measure performance again in one years time. There are no rules – it’s simply what i think might do well, with little risk of blowing up. Part fun, part experiment – would i do better than my real money portfolio where i’m certainly more footloose and fancy free?

The answer is yes it did. I like to bottom fish, buy ‘cheap commodities’ and short as well as buy ‘quality’ or ‘value’ companies for real. It’s looking like my NAPs approach works better. I didn’t post my picks at the start of 2015 so you’ll have to take my word for it, but over the year they showed a gain of 24.2%.

Quite impressive against FTSE 250’s gain of c. 9% and Aim all share gain of c. 4%. But Ed Crofts mechanical NAPS made 43.4%!! Thats really quite impressive.

With this in mind i select my 2016 NAPS. Can i beat the mechanical Stockopedia NAPS or does my human subjectivity lead me to under perform again….