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.

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