The market continues to befuddle the bears as the third quarter earnings and stock prices continued to move in a positive direction.
During this period Washington has taken charge of the auto industry and helped prop it up with the "cash-for-clunkers" program. They continue to subsidize the real estate market with first-time home buyers incentives, and very low interest rates. The banks are being refueled by the Federal Reserve with interest rates as low as zero, while all the time currency stability has been sacrificed. This has driven gold prices to new highs.
This is the third review of my 2009 stock picks through September 30 (see: Chasing Value: 9 picks for 2009 -- APC, GE, ISRG, WFC and more). This years picks have annihilated index comparisons, so much so that I must attribute some of my good fortune to luck. However, I do believe the original reasoning was sound and the outlier nature of the gains certainly a result of an oversold market living in fear.
Anybody reading Bloggingstocks.com for any length of time will know that I have been following Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) since its beginning.
Yesterday the company reported strong top and bottom line growth, with profits of $1.62 per share, about 37 cents ahead of analyst estimates, and its revenue of $260.6 million was $30.6 million greater than expected. Intuitive also raised its forecast for procedures performed using da Vinci systems, which can lead to increased sales.
Among the stocks that have been doing surprisingly poorly, of the nine, is EZCORP (NASDAQ: EZPW) that owns and operates a chain of pawn shops and cash advance outlets.
Today it is trading significantly lower, from yesterday's close of $12.89, off about 14.5%, bouncing around the $11.00 mark. The stock is down on company news that earnings for the next two quarters and the full year would be down a few cents per share below analysts estimates and earlier company forecasts.
Two years ago I assembled a list of stocks for 2007 and last year I did the same for 2008. The first list remains ahead of the market while the latter did poorer than the market at last check. In both cases I owned many of the stocks. In putting together the 2009 list I am doing something different. I own all the stocks in a new portfolio aggregated in the last quarter of this year.
The market continues to befuddle the bears as the third quarter earnings and stock prices continued to move in a positive direction. 
This has been a good year for many stock pickers and my 
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