Despite us being on the heels of the big Russell indexes changing and despite the quarter-end being a day away, this was a boring day. A study showed a small decrease in online job advertisements, but that was the only item on the economic front. Oil traded higher and bond yields came down as traders are voting for more stability the rest of the year there.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,531.19 +92.80 (1.10%)
S&P 500 927.18 +8.28 (0.90%)
Nasdaq 1,843.34 +5.12 (0.28%)

Top Analyst Calls

Long-term growth stock expert Alexander Green sees long-term upside potential for conservative investors willing to invest along side of Warren Buffett.

Here, the investment director of The Oxford Club reviews Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B), a holding in his model portfolio.

"The market surprised investors with the magnitude of its drop over the last year and a half. Then it surprised them again with a furious rally that began in early March.

"What lies just ahead? No one knows for sure, of course. But we do know several investments that are attractively priced at current levels, such as Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), a conservative choice, run by investment great Warren Buffett.

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.

"Though the past year has been tough for Warren Buffett, we still like Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B), which we believe is well-positioned for the year ahead," says Paul Tracy.

In his StreetAuthority Market Advisor, he looks at the holding company which is a position in his "undervalued gems" model portfolio. Here's his review.

"For only the second time in the investment-based company's 44 years, Buffett saw the book value of Berkshire drop. Of course his book value decline of 9.6% should be put in context with the 37% loss incurred by the S&P 500.

In what surely must be the PR move of the decade, Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO) has downgraded Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) from AAA to AA2.

Why is this a great PR move? Well, Berkshire owns 20% of Moody's. And what could be a better demonstration of Moody's independence and objectivity than its decision to downgrade the financial strength of its biggest shareholder?

Pretty clever, no? Sure -- unless you start to consider that Moody's and the other ratings agencies gorged on fees from investment banks to rate toxic waste for years -- using their AAA credit ratings to convince investors to buy the securities. Now that the ratings agencies have no fees to earn from rating toxic waste, they are studiously trying to rebuild their reputation for objectivity.

Heading into the week's end, we find that the ground under Wall Street has shifted a little. For at least one week this year, investors have looked at the glass as half full, lending some support to a story I posted earlier in the week: Is the stock market spring loaded? Could it move 3,000 points higher now?

Given that there was plenty of bad news, and some of the good news was suspect, I think investors simply decided "it is better to light one small candle than curse the darkness."

With the stock market hovering around a 12-year low, Warren Buffett is back on the hunt for U.S. acquisitions.

The Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) mogul told Bloomberg that the depressed U.S. market and lack of cash available to fund deals is making the domestic market attractive in a way that it hadn't been in years. "The way things are going, there's a lot of things that may be happening in the United States," he said.

Buffett has already made preferred stock and convertible bond deals with a number of distressed companies with strong long-term prospects, taking fat yields along with a chance to profit from turnarounds. Buffett also told Bloomberg that his GEICO business is doing well as cost-conscious consumers look for better deals on car insurance, but added that Berkshire's other consumer-oriented companies are flailing along with the broader economy.

One of our reader's who blesses us with frequent comment's, B. Harrison, left the following tidbit for us recently (responding to: Buffett suffers big losses at Berkshire Hathaway) and I thought I would share it because this sentiment comes to us frequently.

• "And the American people are simply apathetically sitting back while our CORRUPT Congress who enabled and allowed all of the corporate FRAUDS, continues to allow the CORRUPT CEOs and Boards of Directors run those corporations, and to keep their ill gotten "weath" that they amassed while mismanaging the corporations, and orchestrating and perpetuating all of those FRAUDS."

I do not agree that the American people are "apathetically sitting back".... They are voicing their opinions on the web, in letters and emails to their representatives, they take to the streets and protest, they sell the stock of poorly run companies and file class action suits. The truth is that they are frustrated because our representatives have an unwavering singular focus, and that is to sustain themselves in office. Nothing takes a higher priority then that; it's called political self preservation.

With the economy in "shambles," Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) spent a good chunk of last year cutting jobs. Not including the company's acquisition of Marmon Holdings, Berkshire shrunk its number of employees by 2% during 2008.

Among the hardest hit subsidiaries were Clayton Homes and Shaw Industries, which cut their workforces by 16% and 6.2% respectively. Buffett gives the executives in charge of the operating companies tremendous autonomy over their operations, so it's entirely possible that he personally had no role in the decision to cut staff.

The plight of the US and global economy, and how it touches everyone, has most people believing we are in for a long drawn out period of sluggish growth, and that a lot of pain is still to come. For most companies and individuals this means they can not obtain enough liquidity, reduce debt or increase their net cash positions fast enough.

In reading recent stories that Warren Buffett continues to increase his stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) -- now standing at 22.4% -- I started to wonder if some day the name might be changed to "Berkshire" Northern Santa Fe RR?

'My pal Warren' is no doubt looking long term, and for most of the past two years has been up on Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A) BNI investment. However that is not the case today as his most recent purchase at $75.00 per share (not bought in the open market) is under water; the shares closed at $66.04, down 12%. He is losing even more on his average purchase price.

The honeymoon between Warren Buffett and the biographer he allowed access to his personal records has ended. For more than a decade, each Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) annual meeting has included a question and answer session between Alice Schroeder and the Oracle of Omaha.

The event -- held as a dinner at a local country club has been canceled, "apparently because of his displeasure with some aspects of Ms. Schroeder's 960-page encyclopedic best seller about his life," according to The New York Times.

Buffett and Schroeder deny any particular rift and say that they still do communicate, though with less frequency because the work on the book is finished.

If Buffett is concerned about the public knowing intimate details of his life, he shouldn't be. The book has sold a lot of copies but at 976 pages, it's doubtful that the majority of buyers ever actually read it.

Warren Buffett tells NBC that the United States is in an "economic Pearl Harbor." According to the Oracle of Obama. America is in a cycle of fear "which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We'll break out of it. It takes time."

Buffett remains a long-term optimistic, telling viewers that "It's never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride."

It's nice that Buffett is taking to the streets to calm people down: He's one of the few finance people with any credibility left, even though shares of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) have plunged along with the broader market.

Referring to President-elect Barack Obama, Buffett said that "You couldn't have anybody better in charge."

A vote of confidence from Buffett is about as reassuring as it gets, especially given Obama's lack of experience or a financial background.

Hopefully Buffett's right: He's rarely wrong.

For 2009 I will be tracking a real portfolio created this quarter in scary times, when everyone is second guessing themselves, the market, and the economy. Last week I wrote Chasing Value: Annaly Capital Mgmt -- from watch list to buy noting that Annaly Capital Management (NYSE: NLY) was acquired, for among other things its 15% yield and basic stability. It trounced the market in 2008, but the yield by itself was very rewarding and I expect that to continue.

Yesterday General Electric (NYSE: GE) dropped over 8% from $17.39 to $15.96. This triggered a buy order I had in at $16.00, after a negative outlook by rating agency Standard & Poors suggested that there was the potential that GE could lose its prized AAA rating sometime in the next two years based on stress it was feeling on its balance sheet related to its financial services division, and GE's uncertainty in other businesses.

There is a lot of money sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time to get back into the stock market. Maybe that time will be after the Dow Jones Industrial Average tests 7000, or even 6000. Maybe it will be after quarterly reports start turning positive. I'm sure many people will not do anything until the housing market turns around. Then there are those that have sworn off the stock market or at least individual stocks entirely.

These and a multitude of other issues may be keeping you from investing for now and no one could blame you, but if it is your intention to get back in when the coast is clear then you should be making some preparations by putting together your watch list.

Here are some of the stocks on my watch list. I usually have about 20 stocks that I am interested in. Some of them I own already and I am interested in acquiring more. Some have appeared in my Chasing Value column, and some or all might appear there again.

Annaly Capital Management (NYSE: NLY) is one of the stocks mentioned in Fortune Magazines "Ten Promising Stocks for 2009" and is currently paying almost a 15% yield at Fridays closing price of $14.92. The company borrows money at short term rates and only invests in long-term Federally backed mortgages. They have avoided subprime loans and derivatives entirely.

Boardwalk Partners (NYSE: BWP) is expanding and was highlighted today as another high yield value stock Chasing Value: High yield thru Boardwalk's pipes that you can acquire for less than the price the general partners paid in October.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) can claim Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) as it's largest shareholder and you can buy shares for less than 'my pal Warren' did.

Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) is one of my top holdings and favorite companies. I have owned it for years and only selling some shares at $192. I recently started building a new position in a new portfolio in the past few months and I am interested in buying more. It closed at 134.38 on Friday.