Our MANIFEST 40 is a celebration of collective excellence in stock selection, strategy and disciplined patience.

“We have always believed that the collective decisions made by our community of long-term investors are worth huddling over … a place where ideas are born.”

The 40 stocks are something of a barometer because we know that these community favorites are not simply followed … most of them are also widely owned, with considerable diligence and vigilance.

The rate of return remains at 8.8% since inception (9/30/2005) vs. 5.8% for matching investments in the Wilshire 5000 for an excess/relative return of +3.0%. We believe that this portends success for many of our subscribers and investors.

MANIFEST 40: September 2016. Performance Results. These are the most widely followed stocks by Manifest Investing subscribers. Current leader Apple (AAPL) was added on 9/24/2009 and steadily climbed the ranks while generating a relative return of +19.1% (annualized). Figures in parentheses are the June 2016 rankings. Tracking dashboard: https://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/manifest-40

Quality is still solid at 90 and the overall return forecast is 9.0%, pegged to slightly outperform the Wilshire 5000 or S&P 500. The average sales growth forecast is 6.6%. Again, we’d like to see an emphasis on discovering smaller, faster-growing companies — the focus of our Discovery Club efforts. We miss smaller, less discovered, companies poised to make difference, like Bio-Reference Labs (BRLI) did.

The top performers continue to be Apple (AAPL), Cognizant Technology (CTSH), Starbucks (SBUX), and Home Depot (HD). 57.5% of the decisions have outperformed the market.

Capturing Attention: Charger

CVS Health (CVS) advanced from #34 to #29. We’ve noted that CVS has been ubiquitous on screening results for a while and collectively, you’ve noticed. Fastenal and Microsoft swapped positions in the top 5 but there are no new entries to the 40 this quarter.

The results of $100 invested into any of these positions at the time of addition can be viewed at any time at: https://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/manifest-40

We’ll continue to hope that a few promising faster growers will penetrate a future roll call.