Checking Up on James Altucher's Stock Picks

Writer, investor, trader, and entrepreneur James Altucher has a large following of market participants as well as just general fans of his work. In fact, @jaltucher has nearly 43,000 Twitter followers. He is a pretty popular guy now days and Benzinga is also an admirer of his work and pays attention to his stock calls. Therefore, we decided to take a little time and see where Mr. Altucher is putting his money these days. During his last appearance on CNBC's Fast Money he called Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) shares an "easy double" when they were trading at around $10.00. On Thursday, the stock is trading at $12.45 and the stock briefly traded above $14.00 in recent days. In light of a bullish earnings report released after the market close on Monday, May 14, GRPN has added in excess of 26% over the last 5 trading sessions. Not bad. At the end of March, Altucher also wrote a widely read piece on a tiny stock called Vringo, Inc. (AMEX:VRNG) and its patent lawsuits against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). That stock has jumped more than 104% since Altucher's bullish piece. In fact, Dallas Mavericks owner and avid trader/investor Mark Cuban seemingly was persuaded enough by Altucher's argument for VRNG to take a 7.4% stake in the company. By our count, Altucher is two for two on GRPN and VRNG. Not only is Altucher's writing extremely entertaining, but he is also a half ways decent investor. Another of his bullish predictions, however, has a way to go. He has said in the past that he thinks the Dow is headed to 20,000. While the trajectory of the market kind of, sort of, supports that argument, it might take awhile for Altucher to rack up a win on this prediction. In the month of May, the Dow has already plunged more than 5%. Nevertheless, we wouldn't bet against Altucher being right about this prediction either...eventually.