THEN -- Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL): (Friday's closing price of $74.10) At the time I said by any metric you choose -- P/E, P/S, Price to book value, price to cash flow -- it is expensive and has no dividend. Positive notes: No debt., ROE & ROIC are great . But are they sustainable? History says no.

NOW -- Apple Friday's (6/22/07) closing price of $123.00 is up $48.90 and beat the overall market for a 66% gain. I did not believe Apple could sustain the gains but my colleague and our strongest Apple advocate Georges Yared did. See his most recent comments: Time to take sides: Apple is a BUY! and Apple: Two more compelling reasons to buy. I am not as comfortable as Georges is chasing a growth stock like Apple that must constantly stoke the consumer fire. It was a good call on his part last year and I will defer this one to him for now and continue to follow my value approach. Apple is the only stock of the eight that beat my 29% overall return.

THEN -- eBay Inc (NASDAQ: EBAY) : (Fridays closing price of $27.85) Last year I said: Again, by any metric you choose -- P/E, P/S, price to book value, price to cash flow -- it is expensive and has no dividend. Positive notes: No debt., ROE & ROIC is good, profit margins are great and might be sustainable. Great possibilities, but plenty of questions.

NOW -- Ebay Friday's (6/22/07) closing price of $31.76 is up $3.91 and kept pace with the market gaining 14%. Ebay continues to increase top and bottom line growth but is not the growth stock it once was. PayPal is driving revenue but other areas show slowing growth.

THEN -- General Electric (NYSE: GE) : (Friday's closing price of $34.85) Last year I felt: Metrics are average. Positive notes: dividend is very strong, profit margins are great and sustainable. A bargain? No. But worth watching? Yes!

NOW -- GE Friday's (6/22/07) closing price of $38.24 is up $3.39 and underperformed the market, gaining 9.8%. A gain is a gain and when you add GE's dividend they are doing just fine. Nothing exciting then, nothing exciting going forward. Because of its size, advances in the stock price are harder to come by. It is a safe haven but it might not be much more.

THEN -- Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) : No. (Fridays closing price of $409.88) Google is the other star of the group and most certainly beat my expectations. Last year I wrote: Another one that by any metric you choose -- P/E, P/S, price to book value, price to cash flow -- is expensive and no dividend. Positive notes: No debt., ROE & ROIC is fantastic, profit margins are great and might be sustainable. But for how long and should you play a guessing game?

NOW -- Google Fridays (6/22/07) closing price of $524.98 is up $115.10 beating the overall market significantly, gaining 28%. Google is still a guessing game to me but there is no denying it performed well over the year despite it's trials and tribulations. It did not achieve any of the wild predictions of the analysts but it is way ahead of my expectations achieving the middle ground between my conservative view and analysts wild figures.

THEN -- Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) : (Friday's closing price of $26.85) Last year I said: Very mixed metrics -- P/E average, but P/S, P/B & P/cash flow overly high. Positive notes: some dividend, tons of cash (give more to shareholders, Steve), No debt., ROE and ROIC is very good and profit margins are great!! But sustainable? I don't think so. The data seems to want this stock at $19 to me and I think it will hit that sometime this year. Most of the noise I hear says this stock is going up, but I see more downside pressure. So as usual, ignore the noise and stay tuned.

NOW -- Microsoft Friday's (6/22/07) closing price of $29.49 is up $2.64 and underperformed the market, gaining 9.8% While Microsoft did not have a spectacular year and the Vista release still drives revenue it did manage to move up. But this is far better than I expected. I was looking for a possible lower buy-in point of $19. It did drop to $23 and plenty of investors bought in for hansom gains so I was partially correct, that it would drop and rise, but not to the levels I would be a buyer. I am still on the sidelines thinking there are better places for my money.

THEN -- Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) : Maybe. (Friday's closing price of $17.02) Last year I had a preference for TWX because it looked the most like a value proposition. At the time I wrote: Metrics are mixed -- P/E high, P/S good, price to book is very good. But why is it so low, price to cash flow high, ROE/ROIC/Profit margins low? Positive notes: some dividend, good cash flow, buying back shares, and may be very under-appreciated based on price to book of 1.25. This must have been what intrigued Carl Icahn into wanting some under appreciated parts sold off. A bargain? Perhaps. Worth watching? Yes.

NOW -- Time Warner Friday's (6/22/07) closing price of $21.45 is up $4.43 and beat the overall market gaining 25.8%. This is a solid gain and the third best performer, not too far behind Google. Going forward I think TWX has it's work cut out for it to equal those gains. It is one of my seven picks for the year but has gone nowhere so far. I am looking for improvements in the cable business, AOL, advertizing, and a big year at the box office still. Will it do another 25%? I don't know.

THEN -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) : (Friday's closing price of $48.22) Metrics are average, with the exception of P/S which is very very low (Buffett watch), profit margins low. Positive notes: low debt, some dividend, good ROE & ROIC. Question is why buy this giant instead of an index fund?

NOW -- Wal-Mart Friday's (6/22/07) closing price of $47.83 is down $0.39 under performing the over all market at just about dead even meaning it was a loser since the market was up so much. This was a good call by me and made better because any index fund did far better. I still think Wal-Marts best days are behind it and there are just too many other opportunities preferable to buying this stock ,or even holding it.

THEN -- Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) : No. (Friday's closing price of $29.32) Almost nothing changed from my earlier report, including their price. By any metric you choose P/E, P/S, Price to book value, price to cash flow its expensive, ROIC stinks --there is none, and no dividend. Positive notes: almost no debt, ROE is good. Profit margins are great and might be sustainable. But this is another guessing game.

NOW -- Yahoo Friday's (6/22/07) closing price of $27.38 is down $1.94 under performing the over all market and off -6.6% for the year. Well I thought the metrics did not support the stock and the results speak for themselves looking backward. Yahoo looks more like an overhaul project instead of a growth stock these days. But do not mistake my disinterest in the stock for disinterest in the company. Yahoo is a powerful brand and has a big slice of the Internet pie traffic. They just need to figure out how to bite-off and digest some more income

BOTTOM LINE: Last year I said "Little value here--I'm still looking elsewhere". Three of the eight did well but over all I was correct in suggesting investors look elsewhere. That's what I will be doing with new money. I hope to do further analysis of these eight in the coming weeks. Disclosure: we hold shares of EBAY and TWX as of this writing.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. Check out his other posts for BloggingStocks here.