Nothing says 'Christmas' like the stock market

Ah, Christmas: The season of giving, of joy, of vaguely unsettling corporate cute. Today's dose comes from Amegy Bank, which calculates the return on Santa's fake portfolio of stocks. The bank's analysts assemble a group of stocks from companies in the consumer discretionary market, which Santa would theoretically have the most interest in, and they review the stocks' performance year to year.

Things are looking good for Santa in 2005: His portfolio is up 23 percent, with an 18 percent average return in the four years since the bank started managing the Claus Fund:

"Santa's diligent investment instincts were as keen this year as his ability to pick top toys," said Robert Heintz, Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer for Amegy Bank. "A faithful old soul, St. Nick stayed true to his core investment philosophy of emphasizing long-term proven winners while remaining opportunistic. Giving a nod to his annual international dash, Santa has become quite aware of the growth in emerging markets. Investors, like our North Pole resident, should consider balancing their glides on Wall Street with their traditional favorites while searching for new rooftops to land on."

Oh, those bankers and their sense of humor! We can only imagine Amegy sending annual reports in peppermint-flavored ink on brightly colored construction paper.

Tech and entertainment stocks were, not surprisingly, big performers in Santa's bag. Midway Games was up 118 percent in the past year, and Google saw a 114 percent increase. But the best performer was Apple, which had an iPod-fueled return of 132 percent. In other areas, strong performers included farm-and-ranch retailer Tractor Supply Co., Nordstrom and Jos. A. Bank.

Of course, Houstonist has been keeping up with Santa's exploits through his blog. Or is it here? Er, maybe this one. No, here it is. So, uh, if Santa's spending all this time playing the stock market and blogging, who's working on our gifts?