There was a chance meeting in mid-winter, along about the time when great companies like wehavenoearnings.com were off in the stratosphere making millionaires of paupers, in which a lowly scribe broke bread with an investment guru.

Before the two parted, the wise one smilingly scribbled on a soiled napkin. “My gift to you,” he said.

There were three large letters — ah, a ticker symbol — and a very large number with a dollar sign that projected a quadruple gain by the third quarter. As luck would have it, the true gift was a double-edged stock-market lesson.

a) Even an investment guru can be wrong (the share price of the tech stock doubled during the tech party, but is currently down about 70 per cent from its January price).

b) The only sure thing in the stock market is that there is no sure thing.

So, on that cheery note, we present the Traders’ Edge portfolio with a disclaimer: DO YOUR HOMEWORK before falling madly in love with that sexy Indonesian gold play recommended by Martini the Bartender, whose barber is the second or third cousin of that gal on a message board whose ex-husband has a gold tooth!

The simulated $100,000 portfolio of 20 Canadian companies, 10 of them Calgary-based, will be subject to weekly trades, based on closing prices the Friday before publication.

Oh, and one more thing. We promise not to cancel your subscription if you don’t buy these.

ANALYST'S THREE STARS

Brian Pow, technology analyst at Calgary’s Acumen Capital Financial Partners Limited, has initiated a strong buy on Montreal-based MediSolution Ltd. (MSH-TSE) with a 12-month target of $7.75. MediSolution (medisolution.com) had a recent price of $2.41 and trades in a yearly range of $1.05 to $3.35.

The company provides clinical and management information systems for the health-care industry and has over half of Canada’s hospitals on its install base.

Pow’s other choices are Calgary companies VisuaLABS Inc. (VLI-CDNX) and Rightsmarket Inc. (RTS-CDNX). VisuaLABS, an imaging-technology company trading at $13.30, is rated a speculative buy with an $18.00 target (trading range, $4.34-$20.25). Rightsmarket, which has developed a generic digital rights management platform for technology-based companies, is also rated a speculative buy with a target of $5.00. Its recent price is .90 (range, .66-$3.90).

TRADING TIP

A stock is your friend, but don’t fall in love with it. Don’t marry Dot-com. Stay cool. A platonic relationship will allow you to keep your head — and your shirt — while all around you are losing theirs. If your stock’s chart resembles a rocky mountain peak (the peak being late February to early March) and you still own the stock, chances are you’re sleeping with a ticker symbol.

SITE OF THE WEEK:
Investorexpo.com

Specializing in small-cap Canadian stocks, this site features a database of companies “that may offer above-average growth potential” and they’re categorized by sector with links to quotes, charts and company Web sites. Click on ‘technology’ and you’ll be in tech heaven, bombarded by 137 companies, including 16 Calgary companies.

HOT STOCK:
Signature Resources
Amazing what a news release, any news release, can do to pump life into a languishing stock. Calgary oil-and-gas company Signature Resources (SRC-CDNX) announced it intends to give itself a makeover via a planned amalgamation with private company 3D Visit, an online marketer for real estate and retail companies. On the news, Signature stampeded from $.27 to a recent close at $1.05 for a 289-per-cent jump. Which goes to show you there’s still some kick in dot-com. (Based on Friday close)

COLD STOCK:
Chartwell Technology Chartwell Technology (CWH-CDNX) tells a fine dot-com story and has escalating earnings, but a ruthless tech market could care less. These days, you can be cinderella.com and they’ll still tear you to shreds. Chartwell has a foothold in Internet games and entertainment development, but a financial report confessing $1.6 million in red ink over a nine-month period through July gave the Calgary company’s share price another shave from $2.45 to $1.95, a dip of 20 per cent. That’s the year low, a far cry from its high of $7.50 in early March.(Based on Friday close)