"Vacationers and professionals finally appear to be hitting the road, and many are relying on Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) to handle the details," says Nathan Slaughter in Half-Priced Stocks.

The value investor explains, "Expedia's travel sites processed 15.3 million transactions during the second quarter, 18% above the same period last year. Howevver, the gross dollar amount of those bookings dipped slightly to $5.6 billion/

"Whenever you have more trips bringing in less money, it's a pretty good indication that prices are way down.

"We're looking for profits in a sector of the economy that almost everyone has written off -- newspapers," says Glenn Rogers.

In Internet Wealth Builder, he explains, "I have been involved in the newspaper industry for good portion of my career; so it has been with great dismay that I've watched the industry crumble over the last few years." For contrary investors, he looks to New York Times (NYSE: NYT) and Gannett (NYSE: GCI).

"The Internet in general has siphoned off millions of dollars of advertising that used to belong to the newspaper industry.

Some of you may have heard this before if you have been in the stock market for a long time: The cheapest place to find oil is on the floor of the New York Stock exchange!

With the price of oil moving up faster than the price of oil stocks, and the high cost of exploration and developing new sources, I have been surprised that there have not been any mergers or acquisitions by the major oil companies. I would think now would be a good time to add to their proven reserves with far less risk than looking for new sources.

It also seems to me that the risks associated with exploration and developing new product would be easier to absorb by larger entities.

This has been a good year for many stock pickers and my Chasing Value: 9 picks for 2009 -- APC, GE, ISRG, WFC and more is beating the market to date. The formal review will be published after the second quarter.

Among the stocks that have been doing surprisingly poorly, of the nine, is EZCORP (NASDAQ: EZPW) that owns and operates a chain of pawn shops and cash advance outlets.

Today it is trading significantly lower, from yesterday's close of $12.89, off about 14.5%, bouncing around the $11.00 mark. The stock is down on company news that earnings for the next two quarters and the full year would be down a few cents per share below analysts estimates and earlier company forecasts.

"Hudson City Bancorp (NASDAQ: HCBK) is a fortress of safety with plenty of upside potential," says value investor Nathan Slaughter.

In his Half-Priced Stocks, he explains, "The 140-year old bank is a classic example of the tortoise and hare fable. Its slower, measured approach has paid off handsomely and keptit at arms length from the problems plaguing other banks."

"Hudson City manages a network of 130 bank branches spread throughout affluent regions of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. At last count, the firm had over $20 billion in deposits and approximately $56 billion in total assets.

"According to an independent study, this tight-knit institution has been rated one of the nation's three strictest mortgage underwriters. So when most other banks relaxed their standards in recent years to attract riskier clientele, Hudson City stuck to its conservative roots and refused to budge.

This is a follow-up on the short term results comparing the Williams Companies Inc. (NYSE: WMB) to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) , Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.B).

I wrote a series of stories about why I thought WMB would outperform the other more popular stocks and two weeks is not much of a test unless you have been trading on my suggestions instead of investing.

The final post was Serious Money: Better than Apple, Google, Microsoft & Berkshire Hathaway, Part 5 if anyone cares to go back and review that.

When I look at the numbers for Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO), it is hard for me to believe the company has not been bought out already. Capitalized at $22 billion, it would be easy for most of the major oil companies to swallow whole.

Contrarian that I am, my view differs from that of Credit Suisse, which downgraded the stock yesterday based on valuation and lack of a visible catalyst for near-term growth.

I have written many times in the past year about Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and since it is up another 23.66% today, I'd like to come back to it. As an investor I have done more than just blab (or blog) about it. I have been loading up on the stock, acquiring shares at $12.00 when the bears were ruling the market only a short time ago -- a very short time ago!

In the last month, Wells is up an amazing 48.41%, and that for the safest bank in the United States. The stock closed today at $24.25, up $4.64.

In addition to buying the stock, I have been playing with naked put options at multiple levels. The extreme negativity in the market created a huge opportunity, so much so that I wrote Chasing Value: Will we be eating out of trash cans? which includes a discussion of naked put options.

It is not possible to follow all stocks or companies with equal intensity, focus, or depth of knowledge. One that I have followed for over ten years is Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG).

I originally bought in at the very bottom, about $7.70 and last year sold about 20% of our position for $192. The stock had reached an all time high about 18 months ago just shy of $360, so my timing was far from ideal, but I was influenced by other factors. In this case a real estate transaction.

Over the past six months I have been buying more shares and have more than doubled our position. I believe that ISRG remains a growth stock, but for quite some time it has been value priced. However, I cannot tell you what exactly is the right price -- that is a big question.

Concerning the current debate over executive bonuses, value investor Charles Mizrahi contents, "As a shareholder, I have the choice of becoming partners with more than 7,000 businesses on the American stock exchanges."

In his Hidden Values Alert he states, "I've found two companies with managers who are aligned with shareholders. Their compensation packages put them in the same boat as shareholders, and as an owner that is exactly where you want them to be."

Here, the advisor looks at insurance firm Markel Corporation (NYSE: MKL) and business supplies retailer Staples (NYSE: SPLS).

"Loews (NYSE: L), the holding company of the New York-based Tisch family, is a way of buying a collection of good stocks at a discount, with much else thrown in free," says Adrian Day.

The editor of the top-notch The Global Analyst explains, "These value investors have a long record of buying quality assets cheaply when they are out of favor, nurturing them, and eventually monetizing them."

"Everyone loves a sale, right? Typically, the Tisch family buys major chunks of out-of-favor businesses, often publicly traded, and holds them for many years. They exemplify the important traits of successful value investors: discipline and patience.

"I calculate a New Asset Value for Loews-taking current (depressed) stock prices for its publicly traded holdings, the cash, and conservative valuations for the private assets-of almost $39 per share.

When oil prices were rising quarter after quarter through July of this year -- topping $147 per barrel -- it was very problematic for United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) to run its television commercials bragging they had the largest fleet of planes and trucks in the world.

Fuel prices that hurt the economy have hurt UPS more. The stock is down from the high $80s a few years ago to the current lows closing Monday at $52.77. It is trading below its 2001 IPO price after averaging around $70 for most of its "public life."

Just about every business journal is coming out with its stock picks for 2009, and among them are many blue chip stocks. These include familiar names like General Electric (NYSE: GE) Chasing Value: Add General Electric to the list, Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), to name a few.

While I was reading this weekend I saw a UPS ad and realized that nobody was directing investor attention to this fine company.

That got me thinking. UPS has a clean balance sheet, great cash flow and is AAA rated. The company has weathered the high fuel prices and reduced business. UPS itself has become a valuable barometer over the years to measure the state of the economy and I often check with our carrier about his business traffic. On Friday he said they were laying off 10% of the drivers but he would be above the cut.

It was only a couple of days ago I posted Serious Money: What's on your watch list? suggesting you had to be ready because you never know when an opportunity might arise to acquire a value proposition.

Then yesterday the market was up but sluggish in anticipation of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke possibly announcing a cut in the overnight rate, so I pulled the trigger on the one stock I could get at the right right price that was the most interest rate sensitive.

• Annaly Capital Management (NYSE: NLY) is one of the stocks mentioned in Fortune Magazines "Ten Promising Stocks for 2009" and is currently paying almost a 15% yield at Friday's closing price of $14.92. The company borrows money at short term rates and only invests in long-term Federally backed mortgages. They have avoided subprime loans and derivatives entirely.

I bought NLY for $14.80 per share locking in at an actual yield of 15.01%. Sure enough, Bernanke slashed rates to the bone letting the rate float from 0% to .5% and the DJIA jumped finishing the day up several hundred points, while Annally closed at $15.84, one of my big gainers for the day.

"Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Inc. (NASDAQ: JOSB) matches the value criteria used by our Benjamin Graham stock screening model by 100%," suggests John Reese.

In his Validea newsletter, he assesses stocks based on the strategies of numerous "legendary" stock market investors. Here's his review of the apparel retailing chain.

"Jos. A. Bank is a designer, retailer and direct marketer of men's tailored and casual clothing and accessories through stores, catalog and Internet.

"The company sells substantially all of its products exclusively under the Jos. A. Bank label through its 422 retail stores, as well as through the company's nationwide catalog and Internet operations.

"Our Ben Graham stock selection model requires that the current ratio must be greater than or equal to 2. Companies that meet this criterion are typically financially secure and defensive. JOSB's current ratio of 2.81 passes the test.

Weakness in oil prices, trading around $42 per barrel this morning due to global economic fears and a real recession are creating opportunities for those with cash to invest.

The volatility in the market is raising many questions among investors, and friends and acquaintances often use me as a sounding board. Hey Wally, this is a partial answer to this morning's question.

As usual I am putting my money where my mouth is, and buying. For quite some time I have been touting the value of Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC). I recommended it at $40, followed it up to $80, took something off the table and today I am back in at $32.

If I would have had a real crystal ball I might have taken all of it off the table, alas, I have to settle for humbly admitting mine is sometimes on the hazy side. Crushing markets like the one we're in are a very humbling experience indeed. I did learn something from the last go around in 2000-01 and have done better this time.