You could be forgiven  for thinking it's the latter when you look at the leaderboard this week.

The dartboard shot to first place this week, thanks to a little known stock called Renascor Resources, which has doubled in value in just three weeks. The initial $10,000 outlay is now worth a cool $20,000 and has bought the dartboard's total to $110,450, a more than 10 per cent return in three weeks. Nice work if you can get it, but let's not forget the dartboard is a random collection of stocks.

The Australian Financial Review columnist Phil Baker likely put more thought into his pick of Mineral Deposits however, which has risen more than 70 per cent in the same period. It's a stock that analysts are getting excited about, and some of the smaller miners are succeeding in cutting costs, giving them a brighter future in the post-mining boom landscape.

And  Money editor Caitlin Fitzsimmons, who staunchly avoids mining stocks, remains firm in second place. The leaderboard for the best and worst performing stocks hasn't changed materially from last week. The strongest stocks have built on their gains, but the weaker stocks have struggled to catch up in a week where the All Ordinaries ended the Friday to Thursday race period down 1.2 per cent.

Earnings season has taken off, but of those that reported this week that sit in the portfolios of our racers, including Tabcorp and Navitas, the results haven't delivered dramatic stock moves.

There has, however, been a marked shift towards stocks with perceived "safer" earnings this week, as bond yields hit record lows, sending risk-averse bond investors into the sharemarket. This has benefited the likes of BWX, held by Fitzsimmons and the AFR's Sally Rose, and Domino's Pizza Enterprises, held by  Money reader David Atkinson.

The Shares Race is a fantasy shares game. Contestants start with $100,000 divided evenly between 10 stocks of their choice.