For 25 years, Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, has surveyed the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is one of 100+ ideas in the Best Stocks for 2008 report.

"My favorite aggressive idea for 2008 is NutraCea (NASDAQ: NTRZ), a low-priced, speculative issue," says Tom Bishop, editor of BI Research.

"Rice is the most consumed food on the planet and NutraCea has found a way to process rice bran -- 60 million tons of which comes off the rice kernel during the milling process worldwide -- into an extraordinarily nutritious food ingredient/nutraceutical that is also loaded with more than 100 antioxidants.

"The milling process normally triggers an enzyme that makes rice bran quickly (within hours) go rancid and thus it is for the most part discarded the world over. So rice mills will gladly allow NutraCea to build one of its stabilization facilities on site.

"Corn prices have soared due to demand for ethanol, and with it the price of wheat/flour. This has added to the interest of human and animal food companies from General Mills and Sara Lee, to Archer Daniels Midland and Purina, to makers of tortillas.

"These companies want to boost the nutritional value of their products while adding a low cost ingredient, SRB (soluble rice bran), as a substitute for some percentage of corn or wheat in their food products. Over 500 companies have signed confidentiality agreements with NutraCea to look into reformulating their products.

"The company's biggest problem right now is building enough capacity so that one of these giants can get enough to make it worth while. Existing customers are basically on allocation at the moment and large applications just can't be entertained for now.

"Added capcity from a new facility in Louisiana has been delayed due to relentless rains (the most in 50 years), and this six-month delay really caused some problems with the business model. This set a lot of disappointment in motion, including missing revenue and EPS estimates.

"The good news is that a number of problems that surfaced in 2007 is now more than reflected in the stock price, as disappointed investors have thrown in the towel in Q4 and driven the price down with tax loss selling.

"Indeed, the company has just run into a spate of bad luck and investment in its future that has hurt near-term profitability. However, the future looks bright and while my estimate has been lowered substantially due to the delays and made more conservative, so has the stock price.

"I see earnings of about 3-5 cents a share for 2008, depending on the timing of new plants, and preliminarily 10 cents or more for 2009. By then a number of new plants in Asia (and Europe) should be operational. On that basis the company trades at a single digit forward P/E relative to 2009 earnings, making this a good selection for year-ahead appreciation."