Yesterday I put my reputation on the line by recommending seven stocks that I think will outperform the market in 2007, You don't have to be 007 to find the best picks for 2007!. In the past few years I have made some great calls and doubled, sometimes even tripled the market averages, helped along by stocks like PetroChina, (NYSE: PTR) acquired for $44 and closing yesterday $142.12; Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) acquired at $7.70 and closing yesterday at $96.73; Merck (NYSE: MRK) acquired at $32.00 rising to $43.55, and Time Warner Inc. acquired at $12.10 and settling in last night at $22.00. There were many others.

This all followed the same disastrous 2001 collapse that most investors suffered. I wish I would have listened to James Cramer when he told me in a personal email that telecom stocks were going down hard. Like any of us, he is not always right -- but he was way right about that!

It has been said, and is worth repeating,"experience is what you get when you were expecting something else." We all got way too much experience in 2001. Since that time I have recovered all of my losses and then some, but it took a lot of work, a lot of study, and certainly some luck. Let's just say I'm older and wiser.

In making yesterday's recommendations I tried to stay away from get rich quick notions and chose stocks that I believe have strong upside potential with protection against downside risk. All seven of my 2007 picks are well known companies to most stock market investors. They are all companies that I feel are buy and hold propositions.

Here are the closing prices as of December 28, 2006 of the seven stocks I recommended:

1. The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW): $40.02
2. Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK): $33.02
3. The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD): $39.73
4. Huaneng Power International ADS (NYSE: HNP): $36.00
5. PetroChina ADR (NYSE: PTR): $142.12
6. Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) $22.00
7. Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) $51.61

I will report back each month with the closing stock price as of the 28th of each month. If I am wrong it will be very public. Although I did not recommend jumping in each of these stocks at these prices immediately, I will use them for tracking purposes, come what may.

Disclosure: I own shares of DUK, HNP, PTR, TWX and will likely own DOW, HD, and VLO prior to next months report.

Happy New Year!

Check out my other posts for BloggingStocks here.

Lets discuss your picks for 2007

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm.

As a long-term shareholder I appreciated news of the breakout of Time Warner Cable.

Now, I'm sure some clicking on this post thought that maybe a typo had escaped the editors, but I did mean "muddle" in the title of this post and not "middle". Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) has been encouraged for some time by shareholders, Carl Icahn, analysts, and various prognosticators and their like to give the market place a clear picture of the company's assets, company's goals, and to unlock their hidden value. This is value that many viewed as mired in a muddle of slow-moving, misdirected pieces aggregated in a conglomerate, lead by a board that just did not get it or get with it.

The news that TWX is going to release Time Warner Cable, which flies under the banner TWC, from its corporate bondage was welcomed by Wall Street and I'm sure Mr. Icahn. In fact this plan may be one of the things shared with Carl Icahn months ago that pacified him and his investor group from "throwing things" in the meetings with Chairman Richard Parsons. This and dramatic changes at the AOL division which are still ongoing.

Continued clarity of purpose and strong leadership will continue to bring value to TWX in the coming years so I will be holding on for a while.

There are many companies stuck in the muddle that should give some thought to this issue of clarity and give investors something they can understand while demonstrating they themselves (corporate executives) know what they are doing.

Other companies that I believe are stuck in the muddle include the following: Yahoo (YHOO); Sun Microsystems (SUNW) which is just plain stuck; General Electric (GE) which should at least tell us why they must continue to own NBC; Microsoft (MSFT) is less muddled lately and 2007 should be their opportunity to come clean; Citigroup (C) is going nowhere fast with lots of potential and nothing happening -- this is one that should definitely "speed up, slow down, or get the hell out of the way"; Ford (G) and General Motors (GM)... could they be more muddled up? Anybody want to add to the list of muddled companies? There are plenty.

Disclosure: In addition to owning TWX, I own Ford bonds bought at a discount to face value. I hold no other position long or short in any other stock mentioned.

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Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an Architecture & Planning firm.

Having addressed some controversial issues like eBay and the real estate market through a series of posts, one of BloggingStocks most avid (and astute) readers asked me to tackle another tough issue -- Immigration reform.

He directed me to the following September 15 2006 article, "Immigration Raid Makes a Ghost Town." The story points out :

"Last month, the federal government reported that Georgia had the fastest-growing illegal immigrant population in the country. The number more than doubled from an estimated 220,000 in 2000 to 470,000 last year. This year, state lawmakers passed some of the nation's toughest measures targeting illegal immigrants, and Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue last week vowed a statewide crackdown on document fraud."

The article is clearly slanted toward the plight of the people that were hauled away, creating the "ghost town," and is slanted against the government. In this case I may have been swayed by similar feelings, as was our reader. However, I am not one to appreciate the political polarization we create among ourselves and I do not feel this article is balanced in its reporting.

Even in the paragraph I have quoted I would not mention the political affiliation of the Governor. Some might say it is normal to do so, but I say it adds nothing to the story and only fuels the wrong fire. This story will take volumes and I do not know how much energy I have to cover it, but if you do not have your own soap box, I am more than happy to share mine. Perhaps we can thrash out what this all means.

One of the first things that I noted in the article was the use of the term illegal "immigrants" as opposed to illegal "aliens," which by itself is an indication of where one's sympathies may lie.

Yes, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is still one of the most fascinating companies in the world, commanding a high price and superstar investor status.

Google remains in the news with multiple stories broadcast on the web each day, and everywhere else: bonding with Apple (AAPL) and Time Warner (TWX), challenging Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), and eBay (EBAY), scaring newspapers and publishers, adding features to their line of products and services, getting tangled up in litigation here (Click Fraud) and abroad (Google relents and posts Belgian court ruling on its website), analysts speculation about GOOG's future share value and all this is just a partial accounting.

90 days ago I posted 10 Reasons I think Google is going down: and the following was reason number 10. This recap and update tracks current values holding myself accountable for my comments.

10. Does not pass the equivalence test.

Contrarian (noun), pronounced con.trar.i.an. : A person who takes a contrary position or attitude; specifically : an investor who buys shares of stock when most others are selling and sells when others are buying.

Turning things inside out, and upside down is basic to contrarian and value investing. In this article I will share my WOW Principal of investing.

WOW Principal origin: Observing how my wife manages our family I have been in awe. It's true: "a mother's work is never done." To express my amazement, I have exclaimed WOW often. MOM upside down spells WOW! There are many times that Mom's world is upside down, juggling three kids and an ever increasing number of commitments with spectacular efficiency. She is also an architect and my partner in our architecture practice. In my bio, I referred to my relationship with my wife as my best investment, and since we met many years ago, I have been collecting dividends.

So, it is with my wife in mind that the WOW Principal of investing came to be. It is a perfect fit with my investing style. Simply stated: If, after thorough analysis of an investment, you are not in awe of your findings (company data, news, trends and surprises) and you do cannot exclaim WOW! (double WOW is even better!), then it is not a worthy investment.

If however, the investment does reach WOW status, you are in business. I do not invest unless I think there is an amazing opportunity and any risk is understandable and acceptable. Good is not good enough, it must be a great opportunity, and the case must be very convincing.

When things are upside down or people's perspective is jaded, there may be a deep value opportunity and my interest is peaked. At the point of discovery is a moment that begins when I say "hmm," and stroke my beard. Then I spend time with my investigation and analysis. But I do not fork over any cash until I find the WOW factor(s). If you find yourself scratching your head and saying huh? instead of "Wow," move on!