{"id":520906,"date":"2026-03-07T18:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/520906\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:22:11","slug":"how-two-investors-racked-up-big-returns-by-picking-these-mining-stocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/520906\/","title":{"rendered":"How two investors racked up big returns by picking these mining stocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew Hebb in Halifax on Thursday. Mr. Hebb says he relied on volatility \u2014 and a touch of luck \u2014 to come out on top in The Globe\u2019s contest.Darren Calabrese\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Winners of The Globe and Mail\u2019s inaugural stock-picking contest took home $10,000 in cash prizes this month, beating thousands of competitors with carefully curated portfolios built to withstand geopolitical factors and volatility.<\/p>\n

Their stock picks shot past even a strong 35-per-cent surge from the TSX Materials index over the same period, as gold and silver prices hit all-time highs, with the top competitor finishing the contest with a 78.4 per cent return. <\/p>\n

The players were part of The Globe\u2019s free Trade Off stock simulation game, and started with $100,000 in virtual cash to build their own portfolios. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an inside look at two winners\u2019 strategies and what they learned from the 12-week Trade Off competition.<\/a><\/p>\n

How these players won a total $10,000 from The Globe\u2019s first stock-picking contest<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew Hebb, 36, Halifax<\/p>\n

What he won: $5,000 for 1st place <\/p>\n

His stock picks: Agnico Eagle Mines, Endeavour Silver, Micron, Applied Materials, Seagate and Western Digital<\/p>\n

Andrew Hebb relied on volatility \u2013 and a touch of luck \u2013 to come out on top in The Globe\u2019s contest, he said. His volatile contest portfolio maximized his potential upside without the risk of losing real-life money, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFourth place is as good as last place\u201d in The Globe\u2019s contest, he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t worry about risk. In fact, you want as much risk as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once he beat thousands of players to become one of the contest\u2019s top three players by the second week, Mr. Hebb \u2013 whose background is in electrical engineering \u2013 focused on differentiating his portfolio, focusing on gold and silver mining firms and technology companies.<\/p>\n

But upon securing the coveted top spot on the leaderboard and a comfortable lead over other top players, he flipped his strategy on its head, looking to correlate his portfolio as closely as he could with other frontrunners.<\/p>\n

Although Mr. Hebb said he looks to minimize risk with his real-life investments, he said the contest taught him about skewed expected returns \u2013 the chance of a typically high-performing company suddenly crashing.<\/p>\n

And the winner of The Globe\u2019s stock-picking contest is…<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike Peters, 60, South Glengarry, Ont.<\/p>\n

What he won: $2,000 for 3rd place <\/p>\n

His stock picks: Wheaton Precious Metals, Endeavour Silver, Aya Gold & Silver, OceanaGold, Pan American Silver, and Peyto Exploration<\/p>\n

Mike Peters secured third place in the contest by going all-in on resource stocks, particularly precious metals, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world of political and economic uncertainty, gold and silver always do well,\u201d Mr. Peters said in an e-mail, adding he felt technology and artificial intelligence sector stocks were overvalued.<\/p>\n

His choices were a mix of stocks he holds personally and \u201cpretty much random picks,\u201d the retired aircraft mechanic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been investing in resource stocks since the early 90s,\u201d Mr. Peters added. \u201cWe are pretty much in what I believe is the middle of a very big bull market for precious metals.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said The Globe\u2019s stock-picking contest taught him that with his competitive strategy, buying and holding stocks is \u201cmuch better\u201d than day trading.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think after 35 years of investing experience, I already knew that,\u201d he quipped. <\/p>\n

Sign up now for the second season of Trade Off<\/a>, The Globe and Mail\u2019s free, online stock-picking contest.<\/a> Demonstrate your market mastery and compete for a $5,000 grand prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Andrew Hebb in Halifax on Thursday. Mr. Hebb says he relied on volatility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":{"0":"post-520906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-ca","16":"tag-canada","17":"tag-canada-news","18":"tag-canada-sports","19":"tag-canada-sports-news","20":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","21":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","22":"tag-canadian-news","23":"tag-economy","24":"tag-education","25":"tag-environment","26":"tag-federal-government","27":"tag-foreign-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail","29":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","30":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","31":"tag-government","32":"tag-life-news","33":"tag-lifestyle","34":"tag-local-news","35":"tag-manitoba","36":"tag-national-news","37":"tag-new-brunswick","38":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","39":"tag-northwest-territories","40":"tag-nova-scotia","41":"tag-nunavut","42":"tag-ontario","43":"tag-pei","44":"tag-photos","45":"tag-political-news","46":"tag-political-opinion","47":"tag-politics","48":"tag-politics-news","49":"tag-quebec","50":"tag-sports-news","51":"tag-technology","52":"tag-travel","53":"tag-trudeau","54":"tag-us-news","55":"tag-world-news","56":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}