In a whirlwind performance attributed to telecommunications equipment provider Alcatel, Mr Joe Donovan's Taz 2 tops the weekly leaderboard. The portfolio, named after the mischievous Looney Tunes character Tazmanian Devil, is composed of core holdings Baltimore and Horizon and new addition Alcatel which makes up more than half.
Alcatel's share price rose by 16.12 per cent for the week ending May 5th, inflating the holdings' value. Mr Donovan chose the share in week eight because he says it increased significantly over the prior two weeks. "It gained momentum and there was some positive news-flow, so I put it all into Alcatel," he said.
The Corkman is a chartered accountant working in the finance department of SmithKline Beecham. He will use his £1,000 (€1,270) prize to finance a trip to Twickenham to witness "Munster's victory" over Northampton on May 27th.
Potato crisp-powered team Mr Colm Martin and Mr Joe Twomey's Tayto investment packet has pushed ahead of the others yet again. Valued at £1,958,527.60, Tayto is now nearly £200,000 ahead of its closest competitor in the overall contest, Mr McDermott's WA Lacey.
Mr Twomey says it's all riding on this portfolio and the duo has placed the majority of its shares into Eircom because they believe the price has bottomed out.
"There's been strong support for Eircom at this level before and we're looking for something that will maintain the 10 per cent gap," he said. Tayto holds Elan (£131,000), Reuters (£929,000) and Eircom (£1,733,974).
"We're happy enough now but our greatest difficulty was deciding if we should liquidate it and go into cash," said Mr Twomey. The team has taken the final gamble and believe if Eircom rises, the share price can bounce back to €4 (£3.15).
Mr Val McDermott's WA Lacey took the number two overall spot using giant steps to climb up the board from 41st place last week. During different weeks, this portfolio has been 16th, 6th, 14th and 2nd in the main rankings. During the first week of the competition, Mr McDermott won £500 as a joint winner of the weekly prize with the WA Lacey and Team 20253 portfolios. No doubt he is hoping to shake off his bridesmaid status in the overall rankings to win the £15,000 first place prize during the final week.
The most consistent student award goes to Mr David Butler who has pulled off his third weekly prize in a row. Siblings Neil and Sarah Madden also maintain their hold on the main student leaderboard.
