"One of the guiding principles of our growth investing system is the concept that major trends tend to persist longer and go farther than originally expected," says Timothy Lutts.

In The Cabot Stock of the Month, he explains, "It's a principle that supports our current bullish market stance and our recommendation of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ: GMCR), even though the stock is already up more than four-fold since March."

"The business, of course, is coffee, a true global mass-market product. And while Starbucks' stock peaked in 2006 (ending a 14-year run), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is younger and far less famous.

"Run properly, as Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) does, a cloud computing network also offers greater security, greater reliability, and lower costs (thanks to efficiencies of scale)," explains Timothy Lutts.

In The Cabot Stock of the Month report, he suggests, "Salesforce.com is very well managed, and in our mind its leadership in cloud computing gives it a fundamental advantage that should translate into growing market share gains and steady revenue flows for years to come."

"The company was founded a decade ago by a former Oracle executive, and today it's a leading vendor of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) services.

"Maxwell Technologies (NASDAQ: MXWL) provides R&D services to the U.S. military and other government agencies; it's become the world's leading authority on ultracapacitors," says Timothy Lutts.

In The Cabot Stock of the Month report, he explains, "Ultracapacitors are handy little electronic devices that store and release electric energy more efficiently than batteries; they can be 10 times lighter than batteries and store and distribute energy 10 times more effciently than batteries."

"So what are ultracapacitors good for? Today, Maxwell-the primary American ultracapacitor manufacturer-is focusing its efforts on two fast-growing young industries: wind turbines and hybrid/electric vehicles.

One month ago, we featured a special report featuring the favorite China-based stocks among financial newsletter advisors. Since then, the 14 stocks covered in the report have risen an average of more than 15%.

The performance of these stocks -- along with the overall China market -- has far exceeded the 3% gain in the S&P 500 index over the same time period. That report can be viewed here.

Despite these gains, many of the leading advisors remain bullish on China; in particular, several have recently focused on the online gaming sector in Asia. Indeed, Timothy Lutts notes that while the video game market in the U.S. is slowing, the video game market in China is expected to show 20%+ annual growth in coming year.

"Stocks are so low that the best are bound to attract bargain-hunters ... eventually," says Timothy Lutts. One such value he highlights in The Cabot Stock of the Month Report is Royal Gold (NASDAQ: RGLD).

He explains, "Royal Gold doesn't own any gold mines. It doesn't mine gold. It doesn't buy gold. And it doesn't sell gold. It simply owns the rights to royalties from a variety of precious metals producers."

"The major benefit of Royal Gold's approach to the gold business is that it involves no capital costs, no operating costs and no legal or environmental liabilities. The major drawback? Well, we haven't found it yet.

"Royal Gold is not large. It has annual revenues of just $69 million and 34 million shares outstanding. However, Royal Gold is the biggest company in the world that derives its revenues solely from precious metal royalties.

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.

"Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE: EBS) -- my top 2009 pick -- makes the only FDA-licensed vaccine for the prevention of anthrax," says Timothy Lutts in his The Cabot Stock of the Month.

"Located in Rockville, Maryland, the company is currently filling a $448 million government order for 18.75 million doses, and in October, the U.S. government contracted to purchase 14.5 million additional doses valued at up to $404 million, to add to the Strategic National Stockpile.

"The vaccine is named BioThrax, and it accounts for 97% of the revenues of Emergent BioSolutions. However, the company has a full pipeline including two 'next generation' anthrax vaccines.

"Also in development are two anthrax therapeutics (immunoglobulin and monoclonal), two botulinum vaccines and a botulinum therapeutic (botulinum is the nasty form of Botox), an oral typhoid vaccine, a next generation tuberculosis vaccine, a hepatitis B immunotherapy and a chlamydia vaccine.