After seeing the interest in yesterday's Serious Money: Five stable stocks for troubled times, I decided to track the stocks on a quarterly basis to see how they hold up over time (otherwise, what would be the purpose of discussing them in the first place?).

I said that all five have shrewd, conservative management teams and have been in the right place, at the right time -- and prepared. The standard for comparison will be the Standard & Poors 500 Index which closed on June 30, 2008 at 1,280.00. Although my original story was published yesterday, I will be using the second quarter end point for my five stocks as well.

1) Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) closed at $64.34 and pays a 2.89% dividend yield.

2) Teva Pharmaceuticals ADR (NASDAQ: TEVA) closed at $45.80 and pays a 1% dividend yield.

3) Chubb Corp (NYSE: CB) closed at $49.01 and pays a 2.64% dividend yield.

Last night Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG )reached a historic milestone in its meteoric company life when Standard & Poors decided to add it to the S&P 500 index. It will be replacing Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) after J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) completes it's acquisition in the next couple of months.

After a tough day yesterday Chasing Value: Intuitive Surgical confounds Wall Street and closed down to a recent low of $274.75. It opened up today on the news and is currently trading up about 4% to $285 per share, in a market that is trading down across the board.

The following five-year chart illustrates the rapid rise of this highly specialized company that produces a robotic surgical device called the "da Vinci System". They own all the patents for the hardware, software, replacement parts, and service contracts too. That is one big moat around this company.

If you were following my post last year you might have read Serious Money: You asked about Intuitive Surgical? when ISRG was trading in the low $120's. Since that time it has reached $359.59 -- not a bad return. I have been following ISRG since the beginning and own shares at $7.70 the lowest entry point possible post IPO.

The irony of this story is that I also recommended Bear Stearns last year so my best stock pick ever is replacing one of my worst. Intuitive Surgical belongs on your watch list, and if it dips again during the sumer doldrums perhaps there might be another buying opportunity.

UPDATE: ISRG finished the day at $284.77 up $10.02 (+3.65%)

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of ISRG.

A funny thing happened this afternoon, but it won't be funny to the bulk of investors. Late this afternoon, the frustration and panic started setting in. You can blame a lot of it on many things, but the real fault may be the charts. The DJIA was off 165 points to 12,855.71 and the S&P 500 was off even worse, down 20.59 at 1,397.67.

The market sell-off was small early on but then reached certain sell levels that had been prior resistance levels on the way up. These numbers have been rounded for ease:
When the S&P 500 didn't hold right at 1,410.00, that added more pressure. Then, when 1,405.00 didn't hold, it added on another wave of sellers, and now 1,400 will act as a stead line of resistance, maybe beyond today. But it sure looks like we just lost the first cushion and moved out of that S&P up-trend after the 1,400 level was violated.

Was there news? Sure. Word came today that one of the suicide bombers in Iraq had been a Guantanamo POW; we also got word of an earthquake in Japan. But that darned dinosaur water, or black gold, just won't quit rising even when you get news that looks like it could fall. Today's higher oil inventories didn't do anything to stop the climb in oil prices and they rose $1.68 to $123.51 per barrel .

Many of these market whips come and go, but it sure looks like the pessimists and the bears just got the upper hand over the bulls today.

After three months it is time to face the facts: two of the three indices beat my picks handily. I have not made a good showing so far and unlike most investment idea sources, I feel obliged to air my dirty laundry for all to see.

My riskiest stock pick Newcastle Investment Corp (NYSE:NCT) is down almost 37% this year, and the energy stocks did almost as poorly even though fuel prices are near all-time highs. The downers were not offset by this months' repeat winners.

March was a seesaw battle, but in the end there was not much to show for it. However, unlike the last day of January (down 370 points in the Dow) and February's last trading day (down 315 points), March had a final day of plus 46.49, which is not very meaningful.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave some ground in March as did the Standard & Poor's 500 Index while the technology heavy NASDAQ Composite Index was marginally up with stocks like Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) improving notably.

Most of my picks sagged a little more, while two remain in positive territory. Raytheon Co. (NYSE: RTN), the high tech defense contractor is up and Reliance Steel & Aluminum (NYSE: RS) is way up.

There has been plenty of banter back and forth as to whether the Federal Reserve had lost some of its gusto. Can it have a significant impact given the massive scale of the global economy? Measured by the reaction of Wall Street investors today, the answer is a resounding yes.

Wall Street has finally found a reason for a big rally. The Federal Reserve plans to pump $200 billion into the financial markets to help ease the strain from the credit crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average is up about 416 points at the 12,156 level. That's the index's biggest one-day point gain since July 24, 2002. The NASDAQ closed up 86.42 to 2,255.76 and the S&P 500 finished the day at 1,320.65 gaining 47.28.

Among some of our more closely watched stocks Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) rallied to 439.85 +26.23 (+6.34%), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) climbed 127.39 +7.70 (+6.43%) Microsoft was up 29.30 +1.25 (+4.46%), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) rose 67.15 +3.68 (+5.80%), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) moved up to 163.07 +7.49 (+4.81%), eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) grew to 26.41 +0.69 (+2.68%), and General Electric (NYSE: GE) was up to 33.40 +1.70 (+5.36%).

Todays move by the Fed implies they had seen enough data, and stories like Dow below 12,000 -- do I hear 11,000? Yes I do! to be spooked into action. No one knows what tomorrow will bring but at least for today the Fed was Big Time again!

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own EBAY and do not own any of the other stocks discussed.

A recent survey of analysts by Reuters shows that forecasters believe that earnings growth will be very slow in the first half of 2008. First quarter profits are only expected to rise 2.6% and the second quarter is forecast to be up 3.5%. But, according to The Wall Street Journal, "S&P 500 earnings are expected to be up 20% in the third quarter and 50% in the fourth quarter, analysts said."

The numbers seem overblown. They might work because banks and financial companies had such huge write-offs in late 2007 that an improvement could help push earnings up. If a bank lost $10 billion in the second half of 2007 and makes only $1 in the comparable period in 2008, the numbers on earnings growth look pretty good.

Of course, the headline does not take into account that, leaving out perverse weighting of improved earnings at banks, the increase in EPS at all other companies in the S&P could be very, very modest.

Averages can be deceiving and, in this case, could lead investors in the wrong direction.

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

The S&P 500 would be doing OK if it weren't for the total number and performance of financial stocks in the index.

Some 60% of the companies in the S&P that have reported fourth-quarter profits have beat estimates. But the companies that missed, mostly financial firms, have missed by so much, that it drags down the average profit of the pool overall.

According to the Associated Press, "Losses from financial players like Citigroup Inc., Bear Stearns Cos., and Merrill Lynch & Co. wiped about $61 billion from the S&P 500's overall profit during the fourth quarter."

In an odd way, this is good news. It means that the industries outside the financial sector are holding up relatively well. That indicates that employment in these parts of the economy may end up in relatively good shape. Capital spending may not be hurt as badly as some Wall Street analysts fear.

If much of the damage to the markets and corporate America stays isolated to the financials, the country could avoid a recession.

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

The market spent much of Friday running numbers on what a Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) buy-out of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) might yield in terms of competition in the online ad market. What may have been missed is that the S&P 500 had its worst January since 1990 according to Reuters.

The S&P fell about 4%, but the figure for the Nasdaq Composite was much worse. It dropped 8%. Some off the most important stocks in the index had breathtaking falls. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) fell-off about 30%. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) fell 15%. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) moved down 25%. With their huge market caps, these stocks get tremendous weight in the index.

What this tells the market is that Wall Street is deeply mistrustful about any recovery in the economy. Tech helped keep U.S. stocks from an awful year in 2007. They are now extremely unlikely to reprise that role in 2008. That does not leave any sector to help the market through a tough period. The economic slowdown has already touched most industries.

If the past is prelude, the stock market is in for a bone-jarring drop in 2008. A day of M&A news is just a distraction.

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

Recently, Merrill Lynch's chief North American economist David Rosenberg (and a few others) have taken the plunge saying that a recession is now underway in the United States. But that doesn't mean they were necessarily first to make the call.

If you look at how various sectors have performed since the S&P 500 index hit a closing peak of 1565.15 on October 9, it seems like investors, collectively speaking at least, were ahead of the forecasters.

From the point the market reversed and began the descent that has continued into 2008, some of the best performing groups have been those that are generally seen as "defensive," including utilities, consumer staples and health care.

On October 9, the S&P 500 index rose 12.57 points to close at a record high of 1565.15. The move was attributed to the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve's September 18 meeting that indicated the central bank wasn't seeing any broad-based weakness in the U.S. economy.

But based on the performance of the overall market and various sectors since then, it seems that investors didn't necessarily buy into what policymakers said.

Over the course of 10 weeks, the benchmark measure has fallen by 6.9%, hurt by growing turbulence in credit markets and heightened fears over the health of the consumer and the state of the economy.

At the same time, some of the best performing groups have been those that often hold their own when investors are worried about the future. From the early October market peak, both the consumer staples and the utility sectors have gained 3.9%.

The big losers over the span: financials and consumer discretionary shares, which have lost 18.6% and 12.6%, respectively.

While it is still possible that the Fed's relatively sanguine views about the economy could prove correct, recent developments serve as a useful reminder when it comes to gauging which way share prices are headed, don't believe everything you hear!

Michael Panzner is a 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets and the author of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes and The New Laws of the Stock Market Jungle.

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.

This Chasing Value post marks my 400th story for BloggingStocks over the last 18 months. I originally agreed to do about five per month, so I have exceeded what I thought was practical, given my other responsibilities. Through this time I have learned a lot about writing, blogging, editing, the internet, AOL, and have continued to improve my investing acumen, which is a never-ending process. Many of our readers have contributed with some thought-provoking commentary and made this time a more interesting journey. I created the Chasing Value section after discussions with Senior Editor Amey Stone, and it seems to have gathered a modest following. This is the latest installment tracking my 2007 picks.

Through September, the market has benefited from a 0.5% interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve Board, recovering much of August's losses. This has also stimulated oil and gold prices to new highs and caused the dollar to shrink in value overseas. To some degree I think this resulted in foreign stocks rising significantly, most notably Huaneng Power International ADS which derives 100% of its revenue outside the United States. Last December, I made a strong case for HNP; prior to its recent rise I did so again for our Volatile Market picks: Huaneng Power (HNP) is my pick for the next 50 years.

This year continues to be a stock picker's market, as the volatile James Cramer of TheStreet.com and I have both topped the indices. Cramer made the best and worst picks for the year among those I've been tracking monthly. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the best performer among all the stocks and indices in this review, and has stabilized what might have otherwise been a mediocre showing. It has been a good year for energy and tech stocks. The past few months have been dismal for the financial sector, and anything lingering near its giant shadow.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is once again approaching its high of 14,000 and looks like there might be room to exceed it. The housing market and subprime loans continue to worry investors, but unlike last month when an interest rate cut was not a certainty, the market seems to be betting now that another cut is not far off.

For about 16 months I have been writing about business news, the over-all market, pet peeves and some stocks I like. At times I have responded to inquiries in the comments section or follow-up posts. Sometimes I have responded directly to some of our regular readers. Many of our readers are quite-well versed in the investment world and the stock market in particular; and I have learned some things from them too. On many occasions something a reader has commented on has stimulated another story, and I have done several sagas during my tenure.

BloggingStocks has improved every month and when I look at the company I am keeping lately I am flattered to be among them. Our editors have been extremely encouraging and supportive. One of the best features about this site that I think puts us head and shoulders above others is the almost instant feedback afforded by the comments section and the dialog that ensues. This is not possible in magazines or sites trying to compete online with large business journals.

Last week Barron's [subscription required] socked it to Mr. Booyah!, James Cramer, with a cover story highlighting his overall mediocre stock-picks performance and the associated antics on his highly rated (for cable) CNBC Mad Money show.

There have been many follow up stories reflecting on the Barron's article and I thought I had to add my voice, not to jump on to the bandwagon, but to share my own take. Differing tracking sites weighed in on how successful Cramer has been (or not) in his stock picking. As I read Barron's own take and the many twisted tales portrayed by CNBC and TheStreet.com, I thought about my own tracking. You see, I have actually been tracking Cramer's nine picks for the year and sharing it with our readers each month. This month I posted Chasing Value 2007 picks : Google (GOOG) runs up, Cramer runs down, indices worse and Cramer did in fact beat the indices through the end of July.

Here is an excerpt:

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) closed at $122.06 on Friday. The stock has come down from its 52-week high of $148.92, or a full $26. The interesting thing I find about Apple comes from talking to eleven different professional portfolio managers who I worked with these past 16 years.

To the person, all eleven portfolio managers had nothing but glowing things to say about Apple. The stock has been a home run this past year as it has basically doubled from the mid $60s to the current $122. The eleven managers expect the fiscal 4th quarter ending September 30 to be excellent and forward guidance to be solid and comforting. But, these managers have recently been net sellers of the name. Collectively they have sold between one third to one half of their positions. Why?

When the markets come down in a powerful fashion as it has these past couple of weeks, the first thing a portfolio manager does is "protect profits." I heard this in seven of the eleven conversations. I have a double in this stock, they say, capture the gain now, and re-evaluate it later. Yes, iPhone, iPod, and the new Mac are doing great. Yes, the retail store system is the envy of ... well, retailers. The story is superb and the numbers are locked and loaded. Yet, these guys have been sellers.