These Tech Stocks Will Make Me Rich

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Welcome to week 14 of my stock-picking throwdown with Mr. Market. Let's get right to the numbers:

Company	Starting Price*	Recent Price	Total Return
Akamai	$22.23	$13.35	(39.9%)
Harris & Harris (Nasdaq: TINY)	$6.22	$4.72	(24.1%)
IBM (NYSE: IBM)	$129.05	$84.21	(34.7%)
Oracle	$22.75	$17.72	(22.1%)
Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM)	$10.34	$7.50	(27.5%)
AVERAGE RETURN	--	--	(29.66%)
S&P 500 SPDR (AMEX: SPY)	$126.28**	$91.17	(27.80%)
DIFFERENCE	--	--	(1.86%)

Source: Yahoo! Finance. *Tracking began on Aug. 7, 2008. **Adjusted for dividends and other returns of capital.

I'll say this for Mr. Market: He's focused. Who cares if we have a new president? He's more concerned with stop-and-start bailouts than with weak earnings from tech stalwarts such as Intel (Nasdaq: INTC). Thus, my digital portfolio continues to blink a bright shade of red.

But is that really fair? One prognosticator says that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) is headed for the mother of all earnings blowouts in January. Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), short-term woes notwithstanding, is outrageously cheap. Nibbling at low-priced tech stocks like these now should lead to a feast of wealth later.

Consider history. 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. Tom Gardner's "simpleton portfolio" was also a market-beater. I believe that, with these five tech stocks, I will achieve similar success.

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

• Harris & Harris' third-quarter letter to shareholders is now available. Net asset value declined, as expected, but liquid assets still account for nearly 50% of this tiny tech investor's market cap at current prices. Crazy.
• IBM may, indeed, be legally in the right with this lawsuit. But it still sounds silly.
• Taiwan Semiconductor reported a 10.6% decline in October sales due to the slowing global economy. I'm waiting it out because, to me, TSMC's dividend yield of more than 5% appears sustainable.

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

Get your clicks with more techie Foolishness:

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