You may have noticed our “most added” feature in our Ideas and Research section.  This is a measure of velocity.  It tracks stocks that are being added to tickerspy member portfolios at a higher-than-expected rate.  A “most added” score of 3.1x indicates that, over the last few days, the stock is being added to portfolios 3.1 times more than would be expected.

Looking at the current batch of “most added” stocks, one can easily discern a trend.  Five out of the top six are high yield vehicles.  Among these are three -end funds Tortoise Energy Infrastructure (TYG), Tortoise Energy Capital (TYY), and Nuveen Equity Premium Income Fund (JPZ).  They are joined by a pair of MLPs, MarkWest Energy Partners (MWE) and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners (BWP).  These five names are yielding between between 8.4% and 13.6% right now, showing the big interest in high yields in this turbulent market.

In trying times like these, sometimes it’s good to know what your fellow investors are up to.  There’s lots of back and forth going on at tickerspy these days, but in particular, we’ve noticed the postings of tickerspy member “street,” who was been weighing in with thoughts on the markets for a few weeks now.  Most recently:

The wild ride downwards is over! Especially after learning of a CNBC personality asking people to exit the market because stks are going down another 20%…This marks the bottom. Fear has spread broadly when a pumper induces panic…capitulation has happened.

street has several portfolios with one called “short” listed as default.  Predictably, its done quite well.  The best performers were a quick four-day short of Freddie Mac (FRE) and longer shorts of Alpha Natural Resources (ANR), Micromet (MITI), and Walter Industries (WLT)  (see the portfolio history view for these).  Among the shorts currently in the portfolio, shorts of Xerium Technologies (XRM) and Ebix (EBIX) are performing best.

Quite a few select financial names have rebounded nicely over the last several months (even as there have been some high profile disasters).  Pro investors that were choosy with their financial picks have actually done quite well over that period (including Berkshire Hathaway, for example).  Portfolios with those select financial names and “safe” blue chips are basically the only ones above breakeven.

Currently at the top of the list of top-performing Pros over the last month is Allied Irish Banks.  The bank has big stakes in JPMorgan (JPM), M&T Bank (MTB), and U.S. Bancorp (USB) have all done well.  Also performing well for AIB has been a mix of safe blue chips like Procter & Gamble (PG), PepsiCo (PEP), Wal-Mart (WMT), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

Boring companies have been the key to profits during these recent exciting times.