A friendly wager between brothers.

Welcome back to Duck Brothers. I hope the stock market has been treating you well. January was a little bit rough for me, but the beginning of the year usually is. Consumer spending is down and stocks that inflate for their year end numbers tend to deflate a bit as well. I think that this is a good time of year to ask yourself how you did last year, evaluate you investing strategy and refocus on what works for you. That's what I have been doing.

Tim and I have decided to test our market prowess against each other over the course of 2011. Being brothers competition has always been fierce between us. Basically we wanted to see who could do better with their personal portfolios in the next 12 months. And what better time to start this sort of thing than the beginning of a the year.

We have settled on who has the highest percentage gain on their portfolio in 2011. We are excluding the cost of trades as this may bring down our percentages a little and its not really fair since we pay different amounts for trades. Basically its portfolio vs portfolio to test our market acumen against one another.

To make it even more interesting we have decided to focus on quarterly results as well. The winner of each quarter will receive a point. The winner of the entire year will receive 2 points. Theoretically it is possible to win 3 quarters and loose the year to a very poor quarter and have the bet be a wash. Now I'm not going to tell you what each point is worth (because that would be illegal) but for now consider each point to be worth a nice steak dinner. Just as it is possible to wash, going 3-3, it is also possible to pull off a sweep and have the other brother owe you 6 steak dinners (or points). Clear as mud. Expect constant updates here at duckbrothers.blogspot.com.