The future investment stars are already with us. The NYSE Financial Future Challenge, operated by the NYSE Foundation, By Kids for Kids, K12 Inc. and the United Investors Association, is in full swing, with five finalists just identified. To reach this level, the participants had to develop a new product, idea or process that would "excite, educate and motivate their peers" to become interested in the financial marketplace. The eventual winner lurks within this subset and will receive a $2,500 prize -- a great way to get that portfolio started. And, he or she will be feted at a closing bell ceremony at the NYSE (NYX) on January 11, 2010.

The finalists presented a variety of ideas which are sure to generate some buzz. Kelsey Foss, a 12-year-old from Mountainville, NY, proposed a new television show, "Stock Market Tycoon Idol," which would harness the popularity of reality TV while amping up the content. The program would involve the journeys of 10 kids as they seek to make money or lose it, with the possibility of becoming virtual millionaires along the way. The show would be set at a mock NYSE studio on Wall Street, and exports would be brought out to mentor the contestants. The reality TV reach would help engage a younger audience.

Brokerage firm Barclays this morning raised its price target on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) from $188 to $208. The new target represents a premium of 25.8% to AAPL's closing price on Wednesday. Additionally, Barclays reiterated its upbeat Overweight rating on the shares.

In a note to clients, analyst Ben Reitzes cited Apple's solid product pipeline and strong free cash flow outlook. "New products should begin to flow again within a few weeks," said Reitzes. "We are more upbeat about the long-term prospects for the iPhone & Mac lines with potential new products."

Last night, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced plans to build its first East Coast data center. The facility will be located in North Carolina, which recently enacted tax breaks to lure the popular tech company, but no specific site has yet been selected. Apple is expected to pour more than $1 billion into the project over the next nine years.

Apple spokeswoman Susan Lundgren declined to say how the data center will be used. In a statement, the tech firm said only, "We're looking forward to building a new data center in North Carolina, and we appreciate the efforts of Gov. Perdue and state lawmakers who helped make it possible." Construction is expected to begin soon.

In other Apple news today, the company is attracting bullish attention from Societe Generale. The brokerage firm started coverage of AAPL with a Buy rating and a $160 price target.

This is a follow-up on the short term results comparing the Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) , Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B).

I wrote a series of stories about why I thought WMB would outperform the other more popular stocks and two weeks is not much of a test unless you have been trading on my suggestions instead of investing.

The final post was Serious Money: Better than Apple, Google, Microsoft & Berkshire Hathaway, Part 5 if anyone cares to go back and review that.

Given the current state of the economy all would agree it's going to be a long road home. The market is up today on a few bits of news following what has been a dreadful last ten days. Maybe it's the merger and acquisition activity, maybe it's the news that Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) "let slip" that they earned a profit the first two months of the year. Perhaps the market was just due for a bounce before another slide?

Every day we read various rationales for why the market may be undervalued, or as some believe, still has a long way to drop. We look at stocks of strong companies with historically low price-to-earnings ratios and think now is the time to get in. However, someone will be quick to point out that forward earnings are perhaps going to be less than projected.

The outcome of the Belmont Stakes where Big Brown came in last instead of first is just one more example of the difficulty one has in making predictions. I know little about horse racing, and the only thing I know about the Triple Crown is that there has not been a winner in 30 years (and counting). As irony would have it, the winner of the Belmont was the 38-to-1 long shot Da Tara that went wire to wire.

This event stands out in my mind because I am asked to predict future events on a regular basis (whether it makes sense or not), and because I am in the middle of reading The Black Swan about randomness and uncertainty by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I highly recommend the book to fellow investors and business leaders interested in getting some perspective on risk and the many fallacies we all overlook.

The number of variables that can affect a specific outcome like a horse race are significant, and in the case of the Belmont Stakes, on this occasion something was amiss. When Big Brown turned for home, something wasn't right. Jockey Kent Desormeaux knew the big bay colt was finished. Trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., who guaranteed racing's first Triple Crown in 30 years, knew it, too.

Today was a very gloomy day in the stock market with Oil reaching new highs and everything else losing -- almost. Among the few winners, and I mean very few, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), oil, and specialty steel were up. I went through my watch list and found this very short list of winners:

Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) $78.49, up +$0.95 or 1.23%

Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) $185.90, up +$2.30 or 1.25%

Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) $49.92, +$0.85 up +$1.73%

Precision Drilling TR (NYSE: PDS) $27.90, up $1.13, or 4.22%

Reliance Steel and Aluminum (NYSE: RS) $67.37, +0.$52, or 0.78%

Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) $50.12, up +$0.43 or 0.87%

I've received a few chuckles for investment directions I've suggested in the past, but if you care to review a couple of my previous generalities, I believe that my record has held up fairly well.

I submit for approval the following investment angles for the balance of 2008 and possibly beyond:

Have I suggested investments in water holdings? Yes, I do believe that I have. I believe that going long in water stocks could be an investment hedge of the decade. I also suggest a look into the desalination technology from General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE).

I'd think it's a good idea to stick with the railroads, such as Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI). I claim that, with all things given, for now, railroads can't fail. Conversely, I think it's a good time to back away slowly from trucking. I think misery lies ahead there.

We have seen this play before, and there are two scenarios as to how it could end. Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) is being challenged like never before, having saturated the market place in some locations it is now facing the challenges of selling expensive coffee in a slowing economy.

Would you rather pay $4 for a cup of coffee or a gallon of gas? You can find cheaper coffee but you have few options to find cheaper fuel. Amid the already difficult operating environment Starbucks is faced with competition from the largest restaurant chain in the world, McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD). McDonald's is looking to steal its morning thunder with competitive offerings at a far lower pricing structure. The threat is very real no matter what spin Starbucks puts on it.

This brings to mind two similar situations both involving Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and past competitors. Early on there were two word processing programs that together probably had 90% market share. Those were Wordperfect and Wordstar. Both of them were fine programs offering strong features, and now they are nowhere. Microsoft displaced both of them with MS-Word integrated with their Office suite of products, and is now king.

Towards the end of 2007 when the overall stock market was softening, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) were still soaring to new highs, and the optimism most assuredly reached euphoria and beyond. What is the next level beyond euphoria -- madness -- and that's the kiss of death!

When the notorious Henry Bloggett proclaimed that GOOG was destined to reach $2,000 I do not think there was a dry eye in the house, either laughing at this ridiculous comment, which by the way offered no time frame or reference point, or crying for the shame of it all -- that was the kiss of death.

When I read about this I could not resist tempering the madness and posted Serious Money: Google (GOOG) $2,000? No way, it's too high now! The madness produced many interesting metrics to prove a point, including that you could have traded Google for both Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) and Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG), two of my favorites, as an even swap (in capitalization only). That would be a heck of deal don't you think?!

Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL) is recently trading down $3.22 to $118.33. AAPL call option volume of 60,675 contracts compares to put volume of 35,477 contracts. AAPL March option implied volatility of 43 is below its 26-week average of 47 according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Life Time Fitness(NYSE:LTM) is recently down $8.14 to $32.43. LTM announced inline Q4 EPS of 48c. LTM sees FY08 EPS of $2.05-$2.08 vs. consensus of $2.19. LTM operates 71 fitness centers in 16 states. LTM May option implied volatility of 64 is above its 26-week average of 43 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Sales of Macs may have been so strong over the holidays that Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) earnings could buck the trend of tough tech company numbers.

According to The Wall Street Journal "a slowdown in spending may have left few nicks in Apple, forecast to report a record quarter after the market's close."

According to a recent study from ChangeWave Alliance, Mac sales probably took share from both Dell (NYSE: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) late last year and in the early part of 2008. Steve Jobs recently said that Apple has already sold four million iPhones. The revenue from these is spread over the life of the phone's service contract, so it is hard to calculate how that will affect the company's numbers for the last calendar quarter of 2007.

Estimates for iPod sales run around 24.5 million, up from 21.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. The growth of the product has slowed as it faces some market saturation, but if Apple sold 25 million iPods, the market would view it as a positive surprise.

The question now is not whether Apple beat the devil in the last quarter of 2007. The question is how does the company think it will do in the face of a possible recession.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• According to the Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street," long-running drama at Marsh & McLennan (NYSE:MMC) may finally conclude if the company is able to figure out how to run its core insurance brokerage business more profitably.

OTHER PAPERS:

• Transocean (NYSE:RIG) has already secured contracts to 2010. Kurt Hallead of RBC Capital Markets says RIG, now at $146.08, is undervalued based on its historical P/E ratio of 18, BusinessWeek reported.
  
• BusinessWeek also reported that shares of Nintendo (NTDOY) ended 2007 up 125%, due mainly to the interest in and success of its Wii game console, and analysts still see a long way in the continuing success of the console for the company.

WEBSITES:

• Mobile Today reported, citing sources, that most O2 stores are believed to have missed their iPhone targets by "some distance," with the typical sized store selling just one of the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) devices per week.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been a truly fun company and stock to watch and write about during the course of 2007. Not a bad name to own either. I have probably written a dozen posts for BloggingStocks about Apple, and I have raised my price target five or six times this past year. I think I started out at $85, went to $125, then $150, and so on. I'll make it easy -- for year end 2008, the new price target is $300.

Seems so simple, but let me explain why.

Apple's story is actually stronger today at $200 than when it was at $100. Why? Apple is experiencing massive momentum in all business segments AND it's still early in all its product cycles. This is the amazing part and I must repeat -- IT IS STILL EARLY IN ALL PRODUCT CYCLES.

The December 31 quarter, ending in four short days, will be another blow-out quarter. The estimates call for $9.3 billion in revenue with earnings per share of $1.50 or so. Apple is going to beat these numbers and once again forward estimates are going to go up. Right now I have September 30, 2008 fiscal year estimates at revenues of $31 billion and earnings per share at $5.25; fiscal year 2009, revenues at $38.5 billion and earnings at $6.35 per share.

Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) is reportedly aiming to move the music industry right into the anti-piracy technology-free era itself, threatening several label companies that the retail giant will pull their antiquated files from walmart.com if they do not upgrade. Billboard also reported that Wal-Mart's 2% share in the digital store arena may not say much, at least in comparison with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iTunes Store, but the chain's CD sales account for a lot of business in the music industry (Billboard estimates 22%).

That large CD sales market for Wal-Mart is big incentive to see the growth of the music industry in the digital market. As CD sales decline, some have speculated that Wal-Mart may begin to re-size the entertainment department in stores, essentially pushing the market online for consumers. Another interest Billboard notes Wal-Mart may have in the "all-encompassing digital format" is the run against iTunes the company and other digital stores could make, like Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s MP3 store. iTunes dominates the digital market, holding 70% of all sales.

It hardly seems "fair" to the record labels and the music industry for retain giants and digital stores to be forcing the change. If these growths and rumors tell us anything, it is that retail chains and digital stores are more attuned to what consumers want than the music industry. This is not a big revelation, but Apple alone has not spearheaded an industry-wide shift away from anti-piracy technology. Apple, Wal-Mart, and Amazon, may not be working together to increase the availability of music, but it appears they have the same goals. They just want sales, and apparently consumers just want easy to access music.