About a month ago I posted Serious Money: AAPL, EBAY, GE, GOOG, MSFT, TWX, WMT, YHOO -- one more look, covering the original Great Eight stocks we focused on at BloggingStocks. These were based on reader interest, which they do still generate today.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was the big winner among only four that had appreciated. The following indicates commonly used metrics for tracking and comparing stocks.

Reviewing the stocks in order of lowest to highest P/E ratio (TTM):

• Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) 14.84
• General Electric (NYSE: GE) 14.91
• Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) 17.08
• Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) 18.29
• Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) 34.25
• Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) 37.82
• Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) 40.28
• eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) 95.24

It is interesting to note that only two of the eight have a below market P/E ratio, while only two are average. On the other hand, four are double the average and beyond, which leads me to believe the overall market consensus is that it is still very early in the game for these stocks and their futures are yet to be determined. The P/E ratios of the four are also the most volatile as are the stock prices.

It was June 7, 2006 when I set up a tracking portfolio for our great eight stocks. AOL Money & Finance started BloggingStocks with a focus on these companies based on investor interest. Today, they still stimulate a lot of interest, and comments.

The following share prices are from the original tracking date now updated to last Friday's close, April 11, 2008. Earnings season is upon us again. The Iraq war is still in the headlines, as are the presidential elections, energy prices, recession fears and our latest calamity -- the shameful Washington/Wall Street axis of financial evil. Here are the BloggingStocks eight:

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was $60.00 and is up to $147.14 gaining 145%.

eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) was $32.00 and is down to $30.87 losing 3.35%.

General Electric (NYSE: GE) was $34.50 and is down to $32.05 losing 7.1%.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) was $380.00 and is up to $457.45 gaining 20.38%.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) was $22.50 and is up to $28.28 gaining 25.69%.

Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) was $17.50 and is down to $14.27 losing 18.46%.

Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) was $47.00 and is up to $54.80 gaining 16.6%.

Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) was $31.00 and is down to $28.34 losing 8.58%.

So after 22 months we find four stocks are up and four stocks are down. Apple is the clear winner and remains the company to watch going forward. New trend-setting products are introduced regularly and few companies can match its inventiveness or marketing genius. Steve Jobs has hit a grand slam. Microsoft, the perennial cash generating machine, came in second with very strong results given the current state of the economy.

Among the surprises and the one I have taken the most flack for is that Google has not done very well in my eyes. It has been highly volatile and makes for a good trading stock, but if you add the dividend of 3.48% to Wal-Marts appreciation you have about the same growth with one tenth the downside risk.

eBay and GE are remarkable for having achieved nothing over our review period, and although they are down now I consider them break-even investments because they have been trading a few bucks higher and a few lower the entire period. Lots of promise, little results.

Lastly, Time Warner and Yahoo! are big disappointments. Time Warner (owner of BloggingStocks) has a new CEO and change is in the air. Yahoo! is in Microsoft's cross-hairs and looks like it will be something else in a few months. Ironically the two companies are in the midst of discussions to find a way to help each other out of their stagnation. I hope they succeed. Both have great franchises that are struggling to gain traction. Both must contend with Google and Microsoft.

Going forward Apple may be the best bet and Microsoft will probably continue to mint money. The others may just tread water for a while.

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 EBAY, and TWX.

Main market news here.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) said, in a SEC filing, it will fully cooperate with an investigation by the U.S. government after it received requests for documents and additional information on its past stock-options practices. As for Apple's legal battle with Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) over the iPhone name, it seemed yesterday the two were apparently suspending their court battle to return to the negotiations table. However, in addition to the court case filed in California, another one was filed in the U.K. where Apple is due to respond Feb. 21.

Coverage of the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) was initiated by Wachovia with a Market Perform rating.

Ford Motor Co.'s (NYSE:F) Russian plant workers will go on strike from Feb. 14. The union demands Ford's management to agree and sign to labor agreement and will not resume work until it does.

TheStreet.com columnist, Jack Steiman, thinks General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) might be a short-term good trading opportunity.

Nissan Motor Co. (NASDAQ:NSANY) profit tumbled 23% due to rising commodity costs, tougher competition and softening sales. It also cut its profit outlook for the year. Ghosn might be sorry now he didn't agree to General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) demands when Nissan, Renault and GM talked last year.

Joining McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD), Wendy's International, Inc. (NYSE:WEN) and Yum Brands Inc. (NYSE:YUM), Marriot International Inc. (NYSE:MAR) also announced it would eliminate trans fats from the cooking oil used by its restaurants.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Banc of America Securities, saying consensus estimate might be too low. Target price was raised from $32 to $35.

Cramer says that while Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) earnings growth rate is decelerating, it still trades at lower multiples than both Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), both of which have mediocre earnings compared to Google's. Moreover, with its large market share, he equates it with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) during the mid-80s and the Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) during the early 90s.

Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ:SBUX) -- You can see Cramer's interviews with Starbucks' chairman here. In addition, Consumer Reports magazine will publish reports from the nonprofit organization's taste testers that ruled the coffee served by McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD) is better than the pricey coffee served at Starbucks.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) was initiated with a Market Perform by Wachovia.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) announced yesterday that the company would look for ways to reduce the amount of nonrenewable fuels used to make the products it sells.

Early morning futures are negative, pointing to a lower start stocks.

The market is possibly reacting to two things, the first being the sell-off that started around noon Friday, and the other is the sell-off in overseas markets. Update: oil prices are lower and futures may be changing the negative trend, although they are still negative at 8:15 a.m..

On Friday, data concerning the health of the economy in the form of Gross Domestic Product was reported, showing a lower growth than anticipated. Despite the concern about the economy'd growth slowing down, the market braved the news until at noon the sell-off began. This could have also been triggered by a Goldman Sachs report about lower demand for PC boards in China in the coming year. This report sparked the sell-off in the tech, and then possibly expanded to the whole market.

Today, major stock markets in Asia closed lower, with Japan's Nikkei 225 down nearly 2% . European markets are also negative with the German DAX 30 declining 0.7%. as is the FTSE 100 in London.

This morning, September personal income and spending will be reported at 8:30 a.m.. Analysts forecast both to grow at 0.3%. A measure of inflation, core PCE price index will also be reported, although may not have the same weight as other inflation measures.

Topping the news this morning are Wal-Mart, Verizon (both are Dow components), American Power Conversion and Yahoo!:

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) reported a pallid 0.5% increase October sales, the smallest gain in six years. Wal-Mart shares were down 1.7% in Frankfurt this morning.

Yahoo!, Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral by Merrill Lynch, which calls the present stock price an attractive entry point. Yahoo! shares were up 1.4% in Frankfurt.

Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VZ) just reported third-quarter financial results. Earnings (non-GAAP) were $2.0 billion, or 68 cents per share, a 7.5% increase over last year's Q3 earnings of $1.8 billion, or 66 cents per share. Analysts were expecting flat earnings.

Finally, French electric equipment maker Schneider Electric SA had agreed to buy American Power Conversion Corp. (NASDAQ:APCC) for $6.1 billion in cash. According to Schneider, the $31 per share offer, which represents a 30% premium over APC's Friday closing price, has been approved by the APC board.

Other stories:

A Goldman Sachs report from Friday suggesting that shipments of the main circuit boards for personal computers will be weaker than expected this year, could be indicating a sector weakness. Already on Friday the report sent computer makers Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) stocks down 1.8% and 1.1% respectively. Chip makers, Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) stocks dropped around 3%. The report could also impact Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares as many awaited its new operating system, Vista.

An article in TheStreet.com examines the recent rallies of Yahoo!, eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), suggesting they are riding the positive sentiment from Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG).

In the auto industry, two more foreign automakers would shortly announce their plans to produce cars in Russia. General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) are already producing there, and Toyota Motor Corp. (ADR) (NYSE:TM) will start shortly.

Norway's Statoil and its partners Norsk Hydro and ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) have awarded contracts worth about 700 million Norwegian crowns ($107 million) for gas turbine maintenance to General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) and a unit of German engine group MTU.

Time Warner, Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) Warner Bros, Martin Scorsese's mob tale "The Departed" held strongly again, taking in $9.8 million to place second for the third-straight weekend. The Warner Bros. film lifted its total to $91.1 million. In first place was Liongate's "Saw III."

Finally, the Blogging Stocks team reported some interesting stories on Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) over the weekend.

Today I stretch our business blog in memorium of the day.

On this anniversary of a great national tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001 we would be remiss not to take a moment of silence to remember those who lost their lives in and around the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93. We also should extend that moment of silence to our fallen and wounded veterans that have sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere since that day. Furthermore we should salute our troops that remain far from home to this day in service of their country, risking lives on our behalf in a war that is far from over and presents many continued difficulties ahead. Yet it is useful to think about what changes the event has wrought on our economy.

Since 2001, when we were all horrified by this barbaric act of terrorism against an unaware civilian population, we have tried to go about our business. Our nation has had to adjust to the realization that we are a constant target and yet continue to actively pursue the values and goals that celebrate the freedoms that make the United States unique in the world and unique in history.

For the most part we have conducted our business as usual without allowing the dictates of others to affect our thinking. That said, we remain more vigilant and have to keep our guard up at all times. The travel industry is not the same and has still not fully recovered. Our transportation and delivery systems have been forever altered. The cost of doing business has increased in many sectors of the economy. The security industry and military industrial complex has seen a tremendous influx of capital and specialized technologies are receiving increased levels of research and development capital as well.

Warren Buffet often jests about his boring investments. The eight companies we focus on at Blogging Stocks were chosen based on investor interest -- not because they are the best ten stocks to own.

In some ways that makes them the un-boring set. I started to wonder if they could be ranked by their "boring factor," and just for fun, decided to track them periodically to see how they do in this regard. Naturally this is quite subjective so I'll explain my rational with each ranking from most boring to the least. The share prices are from the Friday close, August 25, 2006. The price-to-earnings P/E ratios are trailing figures. Here are the Blogging Stocks eight:

• General Electric (GE) $33.84, P/E 21.52: GE is huge, slow, relatively stable and not getting anybody excited. It has now been unexciting for five years. Jack Welch's leaving, his retirement package and his wives providing most the news for GE. That may be an indicator that it is due for some excitement as it has continued to build shareholder equity. From the perspective of most boring, this would be the place to put your money.
• Wal-Mart (WMT) $43.88, P/E 16.00: Wal-Mart has almost been as unexciting as GE except that it has more law suits, employee and customer controversies and has been in the news everywhere it goes as it tries to open up new stores and new markets.
• Microsoft (MSFT) $25.85, P/E 21.49: I had to give some thought about about whether MSFT of TWX belonged in the third slot. Decided MSFT still has done little to get the market invigorated. Talk of buybacks, and Zune and Vista are big yawns right now and XBox still bleeding cash.
• Time Warner (TWX) $16.42, P/E 17.37: AOL constantly being in flux, Carl Icahn buying up shares and pushing the board to consider breaking up the company, the buy-out of Adelphia and the expansion of its cable assets -- all trumped MSFT to take the 4th slot.

The recently depressed market gave me pause to examine the 'Great Eight' stocks we cover at BloggingStocks. There are no bargains yet, but there are some very interesting developments in their fundamentals:

1) TWX has a very low price-to-book ratio.

2) GE has powerful products to sell -- literally: aircraft and standby power engines, water resource management and equipment. Plus it has a strong dividend.

3) WMT has a very low price-to-sales ratio.

4) GOOG has an extraordinary return on invested capital (ROIC).

Here's my take on all eight stocks:

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.

The best reason to invest in a company is because they know how to make a profit and you get to go along for the ride. If they do not make a profit then, why invest? More importantly if they are not better at it than most every other company, bonds, treasuries, or an index then, again: why invest?

So how do our stocks measure up? I have listed the eight Blogging Stocks companies in order of return on invested capital (ROIC) based on AOL data from 5/29/06 (Yes I spent some of my holiday looking at this stuff)

Screaming for attention: Google (GOOG) 50.01 and Apple (AAPL)  26.31

If you're visiting Blogging Stocks around the time of this post's publication, you're one of the first to view the beginnings of what will be a revolution in the quality, depth and passion of online stock news and analysis. Sure, you can get stock charts (and good ones!) anywhere. You can get the press releases for your whole portfolio in your e-mail inbox or all in one pretty web page. You can read the same wire story in any one of a dozen or more stock-focused interfaces.

But nowhere can you get opinion and quality meta-analysis that goes deep into the stocks you care about - the ones you hold in your portfolio - like that you'll see here. Nowhere can you get passion that runs as red, yellow, green, black and blue.

Our mission is to cover the stocks in our universe with depth, analysis and obsession unmatched anywhere on the web. The first eight stocks in our network are Apple Computer (AAPL), eBay Inc (EBAY), General Electric (GE), Google, Inc (GOOG), Microsoft Corp (MSFT), Time Warner (TWX), Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), and Yahoo Inc (YHOO). We'll be adding a few more each month. We look forward to interacting with you all. What stocks are you passionate over?