These Tech Stocks Will Make Me Rich

Welcome to week 12 of my stock-picking throwdown with Mr. Market. Let's get right to the numbers:

Company	Starting Price	Recent Price	Total Return
Akamai (Nasdaq: AKAM  )	$22.23	$14.38	(35.3%)
Harris & Harris (Nasdaq: TINY  )	$6.22	$5.00	(19.6%)
IBM (NYSE: IBM  )	$129.05	$92.97	(27.9%)
Oracle	$22.75	$18.29	(19.6%)
Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM  )	$10.34	$8.26	(20.1%)
AVERAGE RETURN	--	--	(24.50%)
S&P 500 SPDR (AMEX: SPY  )	$126.73	$96.83	(23.59%)
DIFFERENCE	--	--	(0.91%)

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Last week's wish to "catch a wave" came true. Great results from Akamai and not-terribly-disappointing results from Taiwan Semiconductor were my surfboard, and nervous investors were the wax. They're turning to volatile, cash-rich techies as a recession hedge. Apple rallied 16.8% last week, for example.

But not all tech stocks are safe. Some, like Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO  ) , are downright scary. These are the stocks that (a) lack meaningful competitive advantages and (b) participate in crowded markets.

Top investors choose instead to bet on the best businesses and, in doing so, produce superior returns -- like when David Gardner produced a decade of 20% returns by buying and holding the likes of Amazon and eBay in the real-money Rule Breaker portfolio, or when Tom Gardner selected a "simpleton portfolio" to hold for a decade, with market-crushing results. I think these five tech stocks will produce plenty of durable gains.

Checkup time!
Now, let's move on to the rest of today's update:

• Akamai produced big gains in revenue and cash from operations and provided pricing details for an advertising strategy designed to differentiate its Web content delivery services from what AT&T (NYSE: T  ) , Level 3, and others offer today.
• Taiwan Semiconductor barely managed single-digit revenue and earnings growth during the third quarter. Consequently, executives plan to cut capital spending by 20% next year, and cash should continue to flow as a result. (TSM generated $1.4 billion in free cash flow in Q3.)
• Harris & Harris still isn't getting much love from investors, but by the numbers, this growth stock is insanely cheap.

There's your checkup. See you back here next week for more tech-stock talk.

More tech-tastic Foolishness:

• This cloud-computing powerhouse will surprise you.
• Check out the new Dilbert principles.
• Here are 2 ways to beat the recession with tech stocks.