This year has been a stock picker's market extraordinaire! This month's review provides ample evidence of this, as you'll note that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), which I included for fun because of its popularity, beat all else as a portfolio of one. The average of my seven picks came in second, beating James Cramer's average based on his nine picks. Both Cramer and I beat each of the three indices I am tracking, and therefore beat the average as well, with the largest and most stable, the Standard & Poor's 500 coming in last.

Of course, this could easily change given recent market volatility. A sharp downturn in the market could reverse our fortunes. A lot can happen in the remaining two months -- I take nothing for granted.

While Google shined brightly this year, Cramer and I have each made one pick that shined brighter. Cramer's best, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has gone into orbit this year on the wings of the iPhone, iPod, and growing Mac sales. Benefiting from rising oil prices, shortages in China and the Chinese government allowing a 10% price hike, my PetroChina ADR (NYSE: PTR) has rocketed, becoming the second-largest capitalized company in the world. PTR has done this even in the shadow of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) selling its shares and Warren Buffett questioning the huge appreciation of the Chinese stock market and stocks overall.

Thirty days have passed since I posted Scary market -- any safe stocks? and almost 30 days since Still scary market -- more SAFE HAVENS.

Thirty days is really of no consequence in testing the validity of my comments or these companies. However, I was curious about how they were tracking and I think I should be as accountable as anyone else and more than most since I have been writing for the BloggingStocks site. Since posting the share prices six have moved up and two have gone down. I have not changed my mind about any of these companies or their stocks during this period. I had a good-til-cancelled order for some WM, which filled, taking advantage of the drop. We are also seriously looking at acquiring some more UPS, which is down significantly, to our original purchase price, eliminating all of our profit. They are listed in the order I mentioned them in my earlier posts.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) closed Friday at $3,102 up from $2,995.

Washington Mutual (WM) closed Friday at $42.75 down from $45.50.

Everyone knows that sex sells. That does not take much convincing. Why? Because we have a built-in mechanism that compels us every day, and through every week, month and year to at least take notice. The word in the blog title is a case in point. It probably piqued your interest in reading this, and I took advantage of that. Year in and year out sex sells. Well, the same can be said about stock dividends.

Dividends assure some return on your investment day by day, year after year, in up and down markets. The compounding of these dividends over time adds a burst of upside that is significant in the long run and this has been well documented. The Motley Fool talks about how dividends are powerful and that Wharton finance guru Jeremy Siegel agrees.

So following up on the importance of making a return on capital investments I thought I would add another historic consideration in value investing with a personal example. In my Roth IRA I am conducting a non-scientific experiment.

Although all of the eight companies in the initial BloggingStocks pool are great companies, they are not often great investments -- unless you own them in an index fund and are investing in the overall market. Otherwise, you are placing a BET (which is exactly what you are doing, don't deny it) or more precisely a wager, that you know more than everyone else. Since there is not much likelihood of that, you must choose your wagers carefully. Your proposition (wager) is not only that your stock pick has a greater probability of going up in value versus down, but, that it will increase more than the average of the overall market AND that it will do so after accounting for fees and taxes. THIS IS HARD TO DO!

This is why Great Companies are only SOMETIMES Great Investments. It matters what you pay for them and when you pay it. Since I am not licensed to advise anyone about investments I can best exemplify this by sharing my own actions and those of other more noteworthy investors.