‘Baker’s dozen’ 2016

Since its debut in 2009,09, Sabrient Systems’ annualual “Baker’s Dozen” stock picks have consistently beat the market. Until last year.

The firm’s 13 stocks ended 2015 down an average of 3.3 percent, including dividends. By comparison, the Standardard & Poor’s 500 index finishedshed the year down 0.7 percent.ent. Factor in dividends, andd the S&P 500’s total return was 1.4.4 percent.

“The biggest miss wasas we didn’t think that commodities in general would fall as bad as they did,” said David Brown, Sabrient’s chairman and chief market strategist.

Some of the biggest losers on Brown’s list included Alcoa, which sank about 34 percent, and U.S. Silica Holdings. A few stocks fared much better, though. Oil refiner Tesoro bucked the broader decline among energy stocks, gaining nearly 58 percent, while Tyson Foods climbed about 34 percent.

For his recently released 2016 “Baker’s Dozen” picks, Brown is banking on the U.S. consumer.

His thesis is that consumers will continue to spend money on necessities and entertainment. This year’s picks include airlines, a cruisecr operator, pharmaceutical companie companies, and retailers.

Bro Brown says earnings for the group of 13 ststocks could grow as much as 35 percentperc on average.

“Going into this year we just havehav no confidence in the price of commodities;com we think that’s a wild card,”card Brown said. “So we have avoidedavoid anything related to commodities.”commo

Class of ’16: Sabrient is betting that these consumer-friendly companiescom will grow earnings and be less affected by commodity price swings.