"Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) has fattened itself up by swallowing more than 50 companies in the past five years," says Richard Moroney.

In Dow Theory Forecasts, he suggests, "Oracle has proved itself capable of delivering predictable earnings even during tough times by squeezing higher returns out of its assets, including those inherited via $35 billion worth of acquisitions over the past half-decade."

"While some fear the software giant is choking on its latest meal (Sun Microsystems), the deal makes sense operationally.

Sy Harding, long-known as one of the newsletter advisory world's top market timers, has launched an new service -- Street Smart Long & Short Stock Advisory. Among his first buy recommendation is VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN).

Says Harding, "Chances are if you make online purchases of goods or services, VeriSign is involved, providing the website with the system and safeguards that protect the privacy and security of the transactions."

"VeriSign operates in several important areas of Internet commerce and communication. Since November, 2007 the company has sold 11 non-core businesses and its share of joint ventures, taking in some $575 million, to focus its attention on its core businesses.

"My mantra for investing in this dicey market is to focus on three non-negotiable demands: very solid balance sheet; large, installed customer base; steady cash flows; and dividends," says Jack Adamo.

In his Insiders Plus newsletter he looks at a technology stock that meets his criteria: Sybase (NYSE: SY). He notes, "Overall, this is a company I'm comfortable owning, even in a bad ongoing recession."

The advisor explains, "Sybase is an industry leader in software to manage, analyze and distribute information in the most data-intensive enterprises, such as financial services, telecoms, manufacturing and government.

"To put it concisely: It manages data and makes it available to the many different devices that use it, across the myriad communication protocols that must be traversed to accomplish that.

"Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the bellwether company when it comes to performance in the tech industry, is hanging tough," says growth stock expert Toby Smith.

In his ChangeWave Investing he explains why "investors should own this stock before the economy shifts into a higher gear." Here's his review.

"As a true dominator, Cisco is beautifully positioned in several long-term secular trends including cloud computing and data center build-outs, unified communications, web-based video and telepresence.

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.

"My top stock for 2009 is EZChip Semiconductor Ltd. (NASDAQ: EZCH)," says Paul McWilliams in Next Inning technology newsletter. Indeed, the advisor believes the chip stock could double in 2009.

McWillaims explains, "I came as close as I've ever come to 'pounding the table' when first recommending EZCH when the stock was trading in the $6's and I continue to believe the stock provides a very attractive balance between risk and potentially high rewards from its current price in the mid-$11's.

"EZCH has captured designs at tier one and tier two networking companies with its innovative and highly pipelined network processor (NPU) and I believe is set to do the same with its soon-to-be-released NPU aimed at the access markets.

"These design wins have been several years in the making and the products, which include the wildly successful Juniper (JNPR) MX series of routers and are just now building momentum.

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.

"Under Armour (NYSE: UA) and VMware (NYSE: VMW) both have the potential for a short squeeze in coming months," says Paul Tracy in StreetAuthority Market Advisor.

"VMware is a market leader in software virtualization. Companies typically do not use the full computing power of their servers, and when not in use, that server sits idle.

"Virtualization technology allows IT managers to use that underutilized capacity -- running software across the organization's entire base of servers. Thus, virtualization is a key cost-cutting technology.

"VMware has a short interest ratio of 11.7 and a freely traded float of just 50 million shares. If all those shorts try to cover, the stock looks likely to be in short supply. Meanwhile, trading at 36 times 2009 earnings estimates with a long-term growth rate of 45%, VMW doesn't look overpriced.

"Under Armour (NYSE: UA) makes clothing (along with sports equipment) targeting the athletic and outdoor-oriented market. Specifically, the company makes clothes designed to wick moisture away from the skin and keep the wearer at a comfortable temperature, regardless of weather conditions.

"Meanwhile, the stock has seen strong earnings growth despite the slowdown in consumer spending -- earnings surged 42% in the fourth quarter. And management recently announced its looking for revenues to reach $765-775 million in 2008, representing around a 27% increase over 2007 levels.

"With a forward P/E of 23 and a long-term growth rate of 25%, UA looks inexpensive. With a float of less than 32 million shares and a short interest ratio approaching 12, Under Armour looks like a prime short-squeeze candidate."

Each day, Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers the latest market commentary and favorite investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

"This is still a psychologically damaged market; take for example, what happened with VMware (NYSE: VMW) after its latest earnings announcement," notes Toby Smith in ChangeWave Investing.

"VMware recently reported that its fourth-quarter net income more than doubled on an 80% increase in revenue. Despite these excellent results, after-hours selling has plunged the shares lower by 25% to around $61.

"The culprit appears to be analysts' forecasts for an 82% increase in revenues. The buzz on the Street is that this miss signals stiffer competition in the virtualization space from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL).

"However, during the conference call VMW management said customers have tried some competitors' products and told them that they see no reason to switch.

"This sell-off is similar to what recently happened to Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) -- blowout performance followed by a hatchet job on the shares. As with Apple, we see this price drop in VMW as a great opportunity to establish a low cost-basis in the stock.

"Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) it's a true 'Dominator' company," says Toby Smith. "The company's major strategic advantage is its size and its marketing power to influence customers' decision-making."

"This is a good time to get on board, he says in his ChangeWave Investing, a newsletter that seeks to identify the leading company involved in enduring, long-term market trends.

He continues, "The company's primary value proposition is not quality or price, but being the single source for its customers' networking technology needs. Purchasers of Cisco's equipment won't lose any sleep over their decision to buy from them. The thinking is if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

"Our ChangeWave Alliance findings tell us that Cisco is gaining market share in all of its main product areas, and the company confirmed that in its Q3 report.

"Investor expectations were high prior to Cisco's quarterly report. So despite overall solid quarterly results and long-term outlook, CEO Chambers' remarks about problems among its U.S. enterprise business -- especially financials and autos -- quickly sparked a sell-off in its shares.

"You might be surprised to learn that U.S. enterprise business represents only 13% of Cisco's revenues and that most of its biggest growth is occurring in the developing countries and Europe, where orders and contracts with phone carriers bolstered sales.

Michael Ashbaugh, editor of The Marketwatch Technical Indicator, considers the market's recent move a legitimate breakout. He explains, "Each of the major U.S. benchmarks -- the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq -- has broken sharply to multi-year highs, and in the process, notched consecutive closes above its 20-day bands."

Further, he adds, each major U.S. benchmark cleared its June high. He states, "That means technically speaking, the latest rally carried the earmarks of a valid breakout. As the major U.S. benchmarks extend higher, the potential upside from current levels is still significant."

Meanwhile, as to specific market sector, he notes that "We have chosen to highlight some names that are well positioned technically. These are intended as radar screen names -- sectors or stocks positioned to move near term."