PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) reported Q4 and full-year earnings today, and the Street liked what it saw. Personally, I'm a fan of Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), mainly because I own the stock -- well, that's pretty much the only reason, since I actually prefer Pepsi's soda over Coke's (although I do like Diet Coke best of all). As of this writing, it's up about 5%.

Net revenue grew 17% for the fourth quarter and 12% for all of 2007. That's great double-digit growth, but the bottom line actually declined 29% in the fourth quarter and rose a flat 2% for the full year. That was on a GAAP basis. Excluding various items, net income actually grew 8% in Q4 and 13% in 2007. Full-year operating cash flow jumped 14%, and it was more than enough to cover capital spending and the blue-chip dividend (the latter of which is a key reason why investors put this stock on buy, hold, reinvest, and forget!).

Snack volume -- remember, Pepsi owns the tasty Frito-Lay portfolio and the Quaker brand -- grew 6%, while beverage volume expanded by 4%. Pepsi expects higher operating cash flow for fiscal 2008 -- $7.6 billion versus the $6.9 billion generated in 2007 -- and it is planning to continue share repurchases. Yes, I suppose I'd rather you buy shares in Coke since I own them, but truth be told, investors will probably do well owning either beverage company (I do concede that I envy the Frito-Lay asset).

Disclosure: Steven Mallas owns shares in Coke, and might buy more at any time.

PepsiCo Inc.'s (NYSE: PEP) first quarter profit rose16% due to the strength of its international beverage division as well as solid growth in the Frito-Lay snacks division. First-quarter revenue of $7.35 billion provided a healthy profit of $1.1 billion for the quarter, up from $6.72 billion and $947 million respectively for the year-ago quarter.

PepsiCo's management reaffirmed guidance for the full year at $3.30 EPS, a tad under consensus analyst estimates of $3.32 EPS. The second-largest beverage maker in the world behind Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) witnessed its international beverage revenue climb in the first quarter while rose by 29%. The Texas-based Frito-Lay division saw a 7% gain in profit for the first quarter as well.

Stay tuned to BloggingStocks this morning at 11:00am PDT as I'll be liveblogging the Q1 conference call right here. The best parts (most of the time) are deep analyst questions at the end of the call (during the Q&A), so I hope you'll join me here in about two hours.

Every day millions of parents send their children off to school, often worrying about what their child will encounter during the school day. Typical worries include violence, harassment, drugs, etc. But for one Colorado eighth-grader, the unthinkable happened Wednesday as he found a dead mouse in his school-bought lunch!

The mouse was apparently discovered in a bag of Frito-Lay barbecue potato chips the student had purchased from his school. Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo. (NYSE: PEP), said it is having the suspected bag of chips sent to corporate headquarters for inspection.

The boy is a student at Lewis-Palmer Middle School in Monument, about 40 miles south of Denver. While Frito-Lay officials have still not come straight out and admitted there was indeed a mouse in the boy's lunch, this definitely does not appear to be a prank. Sure, kids like to play jokes, but since the boy was eating with his parents and several other students who back up the story, this seems like the real thing.

Hopefully Frito-Lay will be able to figure out just how this mouse did wind up in the child's lunch and take whatever steps are needed to ensure that this does not repeat itself. After all, parents have enough to worry about when sending their kids off to school -- finding mice in their lunch is a worry everyone can do without.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

Each year Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, surveys the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is part of his 24th annual Top Picks Report.

Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) is the top conservative investment for 2007 from Ivan Martchev. The editor of Vital Resources and contributing editor to Personal Finance explains, "Despite having an impressive collection of food brands, Kraft has been a disappointment to investors since it sold shares as an independent company in 2001.

"The IPO price back then was $31; today the shares are in the mid $30s. So why look at Kraft? Altria bought Kraft in 1988 to diversify away from tobacco, as the skies were darkening on tobacco litigation. As the litigation environment is improving, and speculation is that Altria will finally spin off its non-tobacco business -- it owns 276 million Kraft shares -- this should allow it to be fairly valued by the market.

"Some conglomerates suffer from a diversification discount. It's believed that if the parts are separated, the total market value of its stocks together will be higher than the parent company's stock itself. One reason why Kraft has underperformed despite its large portfolio of well-established brands is the pressure from raw materials costs that it couldn't pass on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

"The company recently hired a new CEO, Irene Rosenfeld from Frito-Lay, to come up with a strategy out of this predicament. Since Frito-Lay had excellent financial performance while Rosenfeld was CEO, there is good reason to believe that she is the right person to fix Kraft. With better management and the pending Altria spinoff, Kraft is a buy at current prices."

To see Ivan's top speculative idea for 2007, click here.