Back into stocks

Back on September 22, 2014, my brother, on my recommendation, sold the stocks and S&P 500 index fund in his IRA and captured a gain for 2014. On January 15, he got back into the market with two stocks and an S&P 500 index fund. Here are his new holdings:

Fund or Stock	Symbol	Purchased Share Cost (Jan. 15)	Current Share Value (Jan. 23)	Gain/(Loss) To Date	Percentage Of Total Funds
Cepheid	CPHD	$53.79	$55.02	2.3%	40.0%
GoPro	GPRO	$50.08	$52.51	4.9%	38.2%
Stock Index Fund	FUSEX	$70.55	$72.66	3.0%	18.8%
(S&P 500 Equivalent)		1,992.67	2,051.82	3.0%
Cash	SPAXX	$1.00	$1.00	0.0%	3.0%
Totals				3.2%	100.0%

The purchased share cost includes the charge for the purchase.

I know the 3.2% gain in eight days is unusual and also unexpected. I'm not excited about it.

Cepheid (CPHD) is a "a molecular diagnostics company [which] develops, manufactures, and markets integrated systems for testing in the clinical and non-clinical markets." One thing that makes their machines different is that the sample being tested stays completely in a testing capsule. There is no need to clean the machine between tests and there is no risk of contaminating the machine with the sample or having cross-contamination between samples.

Cepheid has been awarded a grant of up to $3.3 million to develop a test for Ebola by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. If this is successful, it will be the fastest test on the market and will cause the stock to appreciate. Of course, in an emergency room situation where the patient must be quarantined if infected, the speed of the test is important.

My brother picked GoPro (GPRO) because the stock dropped 12.2% on January 13 due to an announcement of an Apple patent relating to cameras. I felt that this patent had little or no bearing on GoPro's value and recommended a purchase at the lower value. The stock is up a bit but hasn't fully rebounded.

Why this post? I think I might be good at picking stocks. There's only one way to tell: Actually buy some stocks and post your purchases publicly as a matter of record.