Last December, over 100 stocks were featured in our Top Picks for 2007 report. Now, at mid-year, we turn to the 20 advisors whose picks showed the strongest gains to get an update on their previous picks, as well as a new favorite stock for the second half of the year.

Vivian Lewis, editor of Global Investing, chose DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) as her top pick for 2007. The stock rose 126%, as of June 1, 2007. Here is her original recommendation on DRYS and her new favorite stock for the rest of 2007.

Meanwhile, the advisor now says, "DryShips is trading at a P/E of only 15, even now that the stock has gone up 300%. There is a lot of negativity about George Economou, who heads the company and now is the CFO.

"He headed a prior shipping company, which filed for bankruptcy after it could not pay back loans to British banks a decade ago. This was in the DryShips prospectus of course, and was also the subject of a report written by Kate Welling (former Barron's reporter) for a group shorting DRYS, including the Weeden brokerage firm.

"As a result, all this maybe makes DRYS cheaper than in would be otherwise. When I recommended DRYS in Global Investing in December 2005, I wanted it for its yield of 7.8%. That went up to 8.4% a year ago when the shorts were out in force, and the stock fell from $12.75 (our buy level) to $9.50.

"So the recovery is nice, but there is still an 'odor' around, which is why the resignation of the second CFO in a year causes some upset. I'm not giving up on this stock and indeed, perhaps would want to buy on weakness -- although as a holder, I am not sure I want to see weakness."

See all 20 stocks the advisors picked for the second half of 2007.

With market volatility jumping up in China, it might provide a good entry point to get into HSBC Holdings ADS (NYSE: HBC), the old Hong Kong Shanghai Bank.

David Herro, the long-time successful international fund manager at Oakmark, recommended the stock a few weeks ago in Barron's at $89 per share. The stock is now down to $86 on yesterday's global sell off. Herro liked the stock as a more conservative play on Asia and its many emerging markets.

Chuck Allmon, long-time investor and publisher of Growth Stock Outlook investment newsletter, also likes HSBC. In an interview with Kate Welling at Welling@Weeden, Allmon mentioned he liked the world's fourth largest bank because it has balanced exposure to North America, Europe and Asia. Allmon also liked HSBC's 4% yield and only 11x earnings valuation.

As the lemmings panic over a much needed correction in China, yesterday's sell off provides the level-headed investors with an opportunity to get into this stock.