I always enjoy this time of year. The Christmas music, decorations, family gatherings, holiday plays and stock picks. Stock picks? Yes, 'tis the season for stock predictions! Virtually every financial writer will pen an article selecting his or her top picks for the upcoming year. I enjoy reading them and the logic behind them. As a long-term buy and hold investor, generally most aren't useful for me; nevertheless, I enjoy reading them . Here are some excerpts and picks from several of the experts: In Jubak's Journal, Jim Jubak believes the markets will recover before the larger economy does. He provides 5 picks for the beginning of the year and 5 for later, with lots of caveats. His 5 best stocks for the first half of 2009: Deere (DE) - a farm machine producer that tracks the price of agricultural commodities. Enbridge (ENB) - a natural-gas and oil pipeline company that has a 3.8% yield. ExxonMobil (XOM) - the world's best integrated oil company for the current environment. (reviewed July 7, 2008) Flowserve (FLS) - It makes pumps and valves for moving everything from water to oil and has a yield of 2%. Rayonier (RYN) - a producer of wood products and an owner of timberland. Yield: 7.2%. His 5 best stocks for the second half of 2009: Goldcorp (GG) - the world's low-cost producer of gold. Google (GOOG) - the dominant Internet search company just gets more dominant. HSBC (HBC) - the best banking franchise left standing in Asia. Petrobras (PBR) - The Brazilian national oil company has dozens of new fields under development. It was added to Jubak's Picks on Aug.
