This is it. The long-awaited, no-holds-barred fight for stock-picking supremacy in the championship round among last year's monthly winners.
And in the first week South Sydney halfback Willie Peters is beating the pros.
There are 10 tipsters setting out to make the most money from a notional $100,000 invested evenly across 10 Australian shares for a month. They can't change their stocks once selected.
Peters had the best and worst of it with a portfolio that includes the best performing stock, along with the biggest dud. His big gains flowed from small oil and gas explorer Lakes Oils. Its share price soared after reports it might have hit the jackpot from one of its gas explorations.
But he took the biggest hit from Fijian gold explorer Burdekin Pacific which fell almost 25 per cent, though the loss wasn't enough to unseat him from top spot.
Regular tipsters Angus Geddes , from internet tip sheet Fat Prophets, and Investor columnist John Aldersley , of DirectPortfolio, round out the winners' circle.
Nine tipsters have previously won a round, though our business editor David Potts graciously conceded that some perhaps won more expertly than others.
Every winner in our battles of the share tipsters has easily beaten the market. Since some tipsters won more than once (including the dartboard, which also boasts the biggest winning margin), chartist Richard Pritchard also gets a guernsey as he was the only tipster coming second who was not already in the final.
Only astrologer Doreen Daze is absent from our monthly regulars, owing to an unfortunate alignment of the planets.
Guest tipsters who won their rounds are Comedy Channel's Shannon Cleary , cyclist Rochelle Gilmore and science graduate Ben Harrington.
And, of course, 11-year-old Zachary van Toorn, second only to the dartboard as the biggest monthly winner notionally making more than $16,000. There must be something in the water at the van Toorn household as Zachary's sister, Tara, made it through to our last grand final.
