Peter Lynch, the legendary Fidelity mutual fund manager and investment guru, always recommended investing in what you know to achieve extraordinary financial returns. If you’re like me you know about mountain biking but is this really a good industry for investment? You be the judge.
The most logical place to start when looking for mountain bike stocks is the ticker symbol MTB. Unfortunately MTB is a bank, M&T Bank Corp, and given the current mortgage crisis I’d advise staying away from this stock 😉 MTB is a bust so let’s try BIKE. This used to be Cannondale’s symbol but these days you’ll have to search for BIKEQ.PK since once mighty Cannondale has been delisted by NASDAQ and now trades on the pink sheets. You can buy a share of Cannondale for $0.05 (that’s five cents) but again, not really a stock I’d recommend. LeBron James, the NBA phenom, is a big investor in Cannondale so maybe there’s something I’m missing”¦
Rounding out the list of delisted, no longer publicly-traded mountain bike companies: Giant, Rock Shox, and Bell Sports. In doing this research I kinda got the feeling that the mountain bike industry isn’t the place you want to put your retirement nest egg. Private companies like Trek and Specialized seem to be doing well but we’ll never know since these are private companies that are not required to publish financial results.
I did find one bright spot tangentially related to the mountain bike industry that may actually be a good investment: Garmin (GRMN). Garmin is coming out with more high-end cycling-specific GPS devices this year and the stock is up about 50% since early last year (though it’s down to around $65 from its high of $125 in late 2007).
It turns out that perhaps the best mountain bike investment you can make is purchasing a new bike. Sure a new bike will depreciate the minute you put the tires on dirt but there’s really no limit to the return on adrenaline you’ll get. And if you have any cash left over, try putting it in the S&P 500–that’s usually a safe choice 😉
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