These Tech Stocks Will Make Me Rich

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Welcome to week 19 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	$15.14	(31.9%)
Harris & Harris	$6.22	$4.45	(28.5%)
IBM	$129.05	$84.00	(34.9%)
Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL)	$22.75	$16.61	(26.9%)
Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM)	$10.34	$7.86	(23.9%)
AVERAGE RETURN	--	--	(29.22%)
S&P 500 SPDR (AMEX: SPY)	$126.28**	$88.57	(29.86%)
DIFFERENCE	--	--	0.64%

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

Two weeks, seven percentage points in gains, and now -- finally -- my tech portfolio is leading. Bears, declawed.

It's a good feeling. I haven't led this race since week 4 closed on August 29. But Mr. Market can't hold a good techie down. Or at least that's how many of Silicon Valley's top executives see it. They think now is an excellent time to buy tech.

"We're investing to facilitate transactions. We're doing deals to make money," David Lawee, vice president of business development at Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), said at a November meeting of corporate and venture capital investors. Lawee could be among those involved in Google creating its own VC fund.

My advice? Look in the mirror, David. Google is one of the best stocks for 2009, argues Foolish colleague Anders Bylund. Rick Munarriz likes Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX). I agree with both their theses, even if I'm partial to Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN).

History shows that today's panic is tomorrow's opportunity. David Gardner produced a decade of 20% returns by buying and holding disruptive winners 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:

• Former Akamai CEO and current chairman George Conrades joined co-founder Tom Leighton in committing more than $1 million to his company's stock. Color me impressed.
• Last night, Oracle reported earnings in line with expectations thanks to across-the-board cost reductions. (Operating margins rose nearly five percentage points.) Glad I didn't sell.

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

Get your clicks with more techie Foolishness:

• Have you tuned into the Twitter rebellion?
• Now we know why the U.K. panicked.
• Mr. Softy is at it again.