The 2008 Bear Beaters Contest, which was announced in my essay of March 7, 2008, was done on a day when the bears were having their way. After falling six times in the previous seven days, the Price of the VectorVest Composite had closed below its January 22nd low and nobody knew how far down it was going to go. Oooh me, it was a gloomy day indeed...if you were long.

Of course, you already should have been in cash or short your stocks. We signaled a Confirmed Dn on November 1, 2007 and the next day we suggested that you buy Contra ETFs. But some of you are obligated to stay long or just want to stay long all the time. So what should you do? Use Bear Market Beater Strategies. Unfortunately, the ones we created five years ago weren't working anymore. So we needed new ones, and now we have them. The new Bear Market Beater strategies were submitted, as required, by the end of the day of April 7, 2008 and we have now completed our analysis of the results.

The Third Place Winner is Richard Leclercq, a subscriber from Lancaster, PA. Although we didn't ask him, he is obviously a quick study. Our records show he attended the Philadelphia Investment Clinic held on October 5, 2007 and logged on to VectorVest for the first time that very same day. From the way he organized his entry, he appears to be a logical, meticulous individual. In any case, he was not intimidated by the daunting list of rules spelled out in my March 7th essay and he created a great strategy.

Richard's strategy captured the single most important trait a great Bear Market Beater strategy should have. It is the ability to find stocks with outstanding price growth persistence. In the VectorVest system, these stocks are identified by high Comfort Index, CI, ratings. In my opinion, high CI stocks have the best chance of going up in both good times and bad. If they do happen to go down in a sell-off, they also have the resilience to bounce back strongly when the market rallys. To give his top ranked stocks a kicker, Richard sorted them by RT*CI. Momma mia! He's finding the hottest stocks with the best price growth persistence.

Richard's strategy, which we named "Richard's Rangers/BMB," produced positive results from November 1, 2007 to the end of March 7, 2008 to the tune of 15.56% with seven winners and four losers. That's not bad compared to a 13.06% drop in the Price of the V V C. In order to check Richard's strategy for robustness, we also ran it from January 3, 2007 to yesterday's close. It showed a gain of 38.75% with 16 winners and 8 losers. Not bad!

Richard will receive a $50.00 VectorVest Savings Certificate and a check for $500.00 for his Third Place Winning strategy: "Richard's Rangers/BMB."

P.S. Please read this week's Strategy of the Week or visit the VectorVest University to learn more about this great strategy. See if you can tell why we're calling it "Richard's Rangers/BMB."