Stockpicking Tips from President Obama?

Business Week,

Money managers tout their investing strategy in books, at seminars, and on blogs. Some call it a science, others an art form. And then, of course, there's luck. In that spirit, here's one more stockpicking technique to add to the list: Take a look at who is lunching at the White House.

Since becoming President, Barack Obama has held seven lunches with small groups of chairmen and chief executive officers, including Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com (AMZN), Ken Chenault of American Express (AXP), Ursula Burns of Xerox (XRX), and Howard Schultz of Starbucks (SBUX). In four of the lunches, the guests' companies, as a group, outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index 30 trading days after the repast. In two cases, the groups' shares underperformed the S&P 500 a month after lunch with the Commander-in-Chief. Altogether, the six lunch groups outdid the S&P by more than two percentage points. Thirty days haven't elapsed since a seventh lunch held on July 1. (more)