5 Steady Hands at the Wheel

Keeping your portfolio above water in these markets is no easy task. Companies can be too easily whipsawed by the whimsical musings of the Treasury Department or the Fed, making investors who've successfully navigated these rough waters rare indeed. A steady track record of staying afloat is even more impressive.

The All-Stars in our Motley Fool CAPS investor intelligence database have found themselves particularly adroit at consistently steering their picks through these turbulent markets. Like some of the top professionals, they view this as the best time in 35 years to invest in stocks. Let's look at some of the recent picks of this community's longtime investing mavens. If these All-Stars have been able to maintain their top status through bull and bear markets alike, their opinions on stocks for the months and years ahead might be worth watching.

CAPS Member	Member Rating	Member Since	Recent Stock Pick	CAPS Rating (out of 5)	Call
jmclr	99.51	10/14/06	Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY  )	***	Outperform
MorseFool	99.50	12/1/06	Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO  )	****	Outperform
justiny	99.48	10/5/06	GameStop (NYSE: GME  )	****	Outperform
dplindeman	99.47	10/13/06	Jacobs Engineering (NYSE: JEC  )	****	Outperform
andrewdski	99.45	9/19/06	Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX  )	***	Outperform

Rowing against the current
While the investment community behind CAPS seems to think Indian information technology giant Satyam Computer Services will ultimately bounce back from the accounting scandal that wracked it earlier this year -- 95% of those rating the firm think it will outperform the market -- that may rely more upon someone buying the company than any hope it can resurrect itself.

Even though Satyam is on the auction block, it is looking to infuse its operations with capital by selling just 51% of the company to a handful of interested bidders. IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) was rumored to be one of the interested parties, but sources say that's not the case, as it's undoubtedly more focused on pursuing Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA  ) .

The selling process doesn't look like it's going to be a smooth one anyway, which may result in no one making an offer or an otherwise low bid being put on the table. Satyam is only permitting a limited look at its books for the due diligence process, so that bidders only get to see aggregated trends rather than actual numbers. Further complicating matters, disgraced Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju is allegedly withholding information in the investigation into the fraud. That might make potential buyers reticent, in that further complications and discoveries may arise. The United Nations has already said it won't do business with Satyam again, and there are fears it may still hemorrhage clients. State Farm Insurance here in the U.S. has also said it is severing ties.

However, some investors may look at those arguments and see a case to be made for the company as a profitable investment. Top-rated CAPS All-Star ttboydxb thinks the various parts of Satyam would be attractive to any number of suitors. And the loss of just two big-name clients shows CAPS member exodus69 that the preponderance of Satyam's other customers have decided to remain:

Company is fundamentally sound in its business delivery; most if not all of its major clients are willing to stick around; highly skilled employees are still loyal to the company; stolen assets most likely will be recovered and given back to Satyam; major class action suits shall be dropped once the bidding war for buyout among the long lists of interested suitors brings the price back up to the level before Raju's scam; and Indian government has too much pride to allow the failure of Satyam-they will do everything in its power to see through it that the company survive this mess and prosper again eventually.

Since the government has taken control of the company and installed new management, it is assuredly a motivated seller, and an acceptable deal can still be negotiated.

Ahoy there!
Whether you've been in the markets for years or are new to them, it pays to start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made, all from a stock's CAPS page. Then share your views with the CAPS community on whether these old salts have the wind in their sails.