This post is part of a special annual report -- Top Stock Picks '09 -- in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked 75 leading newsletter advisors to select their favorite investment for the new year.

"Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) is the largest pure play in the critical video head-end infrastructure market," says tech guru Marcie Martin.

In Next Inning advisory service, she looks at his top pick for 2009, with "a solid balance sheet, excellent prospects for continued profitability and an attractive valuation."

The advisor explains, "Harmonic leads the world in HD encoding technology as well as a number of software-centric head-end technologies.

"It is also leading the world in the emerging Universal EDGE QAM markets with a new product that provides not only traditional EDGE QAM functions, but also adds Modular CMTS (M-CMTS) for DOCSIS 3.0 and SDV (Switched Digital Video).

"Following its leadership change in late 2005, HLIT has produced a record nine straight profitable quarters and boosted its gross profit margin from 35% in Q4 2005 to over 50% in its last reported quarter.