When we launched the Pro’s 3 Stars stock-picking column two years ago, our goal was to assemble a posse of bright, independent thinkers, no easy task in an investing game where most money managers drink at the same watering hole.

Today, we’re proud of the team.

In the past two years, the TSX/S&P Composite index is up 10.2 per cent.

Over the same time span, the stocks that have been featured in the Pro’s 3 Stars are up 32.2 per cent. In the past year, Edge picks are up 29 per cent compared to the TSX index’s gain of 20.6 per cent. We’d challenge any other Canadian publication to match those numbers (although the National Post and Globe and Mail don’t track experts’ results in stock picking columns as we do).

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Contrarian Josef Schachter is Business Edge’s stock picker of the year.

A classic contrarian, the bow-tied Calgary guru Josef Schachter, was our top gun in the past year with six winners that are accumulatively up 69.7 per cent. Four other Western sharpshooters were up more than 50 per cent.

Schachter, who is president of Schachter Asset Management, picked Nortel Networks (NT-TSX) at $2.83 10 months ago. The stock has shot up 112.7 per cent.

Another Schachter special, Defiant Energy (DEF-TSX), is up 140.6 per cent.

Vancouver money manager Wayne Deans told us in the depths of the bear market in 2002 that he wasn’t aware of any bear market.

Money manager Wayne Deans

Deans’ style of ignoring the broad market and focusing on unearthing small-cap diamonds in the rough that go unnoticed on Bay Street has netted his Edge picks a phenomenal two-year gain of 79 per cent.

Deans’ home-run pick is Cinram International (CRW-TSX), a DVD maker that he chose at $4.20 two years ago. The stock recently traded at $26.60, a 533.3-per-cent gain.

Meanwhile, the herd on Bay Street has only just recently started to pound the table on Cinram.

For a review of the past year and our Top 10 stock pickers, see this week's Financial Edge column headlined 'Contrarian grazing far from investing herds'.

For Josef Schachter’s latest picks, see this week's Pro's 3 Stars column.