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Individual investors remain quite bearish, with the American Association of Individual Investors' latest sentiment survey showing 42% of respondents to be bearish on stocks over the next six months, well above the 30% historical average. But some of the world's most successful investors are finding plenty of value -- and a couple gurus are finding it in the same place: big, high-quality blue chips.

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One of them is Whitney Tilson, the money manager and columnist who was one of the few to warn about the housing bubble before it hit. Tilson this week told CNBC that he's seeing some of the best opportunities he's ever seen in big, high-quality blue chip equities. At the same time, he says, a bubble is forming in high-quality bonds. Investors are "seemingly willing to accept any yield no matter how low on safe bonds, like treasuries, for example, and yet they have no interest in the safest blue-chip companies, with the strongest balance sheets," he says. "And the companies are doing quite well, so that's where we're steering our portfolio."

 

At some point in every gold rally, the market flips a switch and gold mining stocks start to outperform gold itself. I think we're at that inflection point now.

Analysts on Wall Street are calling for gold to hit $1,500 an ounce by December 2011. That would be roughly 18% above the record $1,266.50 reached on June 21.  

But I think you can do even better in gold stocks during that time, because the operating leverage of gold miners gives you more upside than the metal does. At this point, I'd be looking at the majors such as Barrick Gold (ABX), Goldcorp (GG), and Newmont Mining (NEM), because they have a heavy weighting in the gold ETFs that are a big favorite of investors right now. My pick of the three would be Newmont Mining. (I already own shares of Goldcorp in Jubak's Picks.)

 

Investor Paul Kedrosky uses a term I like: Star-squatters, also known as people-who-sit-at-Starbucks-forever-using-free-Wi-Fi.

"Local Starbucks full of Star-squatters ever since launch of free Wi-fi," Kedrosky wrote on Twitter. "Zero tables/seats. Ever."

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The Starbucks (SBUX) near my house is starting to fill up as well, with plenty of open laptops. Sometimes, there isn't even a drink at the table. It makes me wonder: How will Starbucks' free Wi-Fi policy affect its bottom line?

 

Imagine walking up to a soft-drink machine and having your appearance analyzed. A young woman, for example, could then see advertising for Diet Coke or bottled water.

A man walking up a minute later would have a totally different experience.

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That kind of technology is being used in Japan, where vending machines at train stations and other locations tweak their wares to fit a person's gender and age, The Wall Street Journal reports. "The idea is to transform billboards and the like into sophisticated marketing tools that identify and target a specific audience."

 

By Louis Navellier, InvestorPlace.com

With the merger war between Dell (DELL) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ) at last drawing to a close with the latest $33-a-share offer from HP for 3par (PAR),  tech stocks have really been in focus lately. A spate of mergers and acquisitions has prompted a renewed focus on information technology companies, particularly cloud computing stocks.

However, don't be fooled into thinking that a bunch of big spenders in the technology sector means that all tech picks are doing well. In fact, a number of big-name blue chips in the industry continue to face very difficult roads ahead. Here are five big tech stocks stumbling now.

 

By Jonathan Heller, TheStreet

 

Krispy Kreme's (KKD) doughnuts are so good that some folks evidently use them as hamburger buns. Really.

 

Great doughnuts, however, don't necessarily translate into a great stock. The company went public back in 2000 at $21 per share amid much fanfare, opened at $32 and rose to $37 on the first day of trading. By December of 2001, the share price had quadrupled.

 

After it topped out in December 2003 in the $49 range, it's been pretty much all downhill since, and this former high flyer now trades around $4.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

Look at them go, the chosen few: Akamai (AKAM), Netflix (NFLX), Salesforce.com (CRM) and Chipotle (CMG). Four forces of nature. Three are directly involved with pulling things from the Net, and a fourth has the antidote to Burger King's (BKC) growth problems -- good, fresh, natural food. How opposite can that be!

 

Akamai and Netflix both reported "poor" quarters. Since Akamai reported its horrible, terrible quarter, its stock is up 33%. Akamai's crime at the time? Recognizing that it has secular growth and spending on it.

 

Netflix's crime? Same as Akamai's: spending for the future, spending on different, non-mail ways to get video to you. The stock has rallied 40% since that self-inflicted crime.

 

It's hard to imagine this happening with any other "product": The price drops 12% for the next quarter, and the stock market essentially shrugs it off.  

On a bad day for the market, Aug. 30, when the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index dropped by 1.47%, the shares of the world's biggest producer of this product fell by 1.29%.  

And on a good day for the market, Sept. 1, when the S&P 500 jumped by 3%, shares of the largest producer rocketed upward by 5.5% and shares of number two went up 6.1%.

 

By Richard Young, InvestorPlace.com

Let me tell you about a group of high-yield dividend stocks called "retirement compounders." These companies are dividend-paying domestic and international stocks that offer high yield but also boast strong balance sheets and a consistent record of annual dividend payments. I favor companies that operate in industries with high barriers to entry, those that possess durable competitive advantages and businesses that are less prone to the volatility of the business cycle.

 

The financial sector was one of the hardest hit during the recent stock market downturn. The Financial SPDR ETF (XLF), which invests in the likes of Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan (JPM), is down 17.4% from its springtime high. Compare that to the 11% loss for the S&P 500.

 

There were plenty of reasons for investors to sell. We had the government's case against Goldman Sachs (GS). At home, we had the Dodd-Frank bill, which cut Wall Street's ability to speculate for its own account and reduces the profitability of dealing in derivatives like swaps. Globally, banks will face more stringent capital requirements under the "Basel III" regulations currently being debated. And, of course, we had concerns that a renewed slide for the housing market would result in another round of foreclosures and loan losses.

 

Netflix (NFLX) shares have been on fire the last two days, and hit $138 Thursday. And it's all thanks to Apple (AAPL).

That's because Netflix came out looking like a major winner with a prominent spot in the new Apple TV device coming out this month. Netflix customers can use Apple TV to access Netflix's growing library of on-demand movies and shows.

"Depending on the fate of Apple's device, the relationship could further establish Netflix as a mainstay in electronics devices that deliver Web content to the living room," writes Nick Wingfield in The Wall Street Journal. 

Burger King (BKC) has agreed to a $4 billion buyout and will be taken private (see the news on Market Dispatches).

It's worth noting that before shares jumped on rumor of the buyout, Burger King stock has been anything but royal. Shares of the fast food chain had been down about 6% from when it went public in May of 2006, The New York Times reported.

Compare that with the spectacular rise of McDonald's (MCD), whose shares have soared 111% during that same period. 

Here's an interesting theory from Bloomberg News: The chances of a double dip back into recession are slim because the data just can't get much worse.

The key sectors of the economy that normally are recession indicators are extremely depressed. Car sales are pathetic. Housing construction is miserable. Things are so bad, in fact, there's nowhere to go but up.

So, uh, that's good news? "It doesn't rule out a recession," one economic researcher told Bloomberg. "It just makes it less likely than otherwise." 

By Philip van Doorn, TheStreet

 

After decent performance in July, when the great majority of stocks among the 50 largest public U.S. bank and thrift holding companies (by total assets) showed gains, August was a return to misery for the banking sector, with 49 out of 50 declining.

 

Here are the five best stock performers among the group during August:

 

5. Hudson City Bancorp

 

Company Profile: Headquartered in Paramus, N.J., Hudson City Bancorp (HCBK) operates more than 130 branches in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Shares declined 6% during August to close-out the month at $11.53.

 

By Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

The afterglow of yesterday's rally is a good time to talk about what I see the Obama administration cooking up against business. The Obama camp loves to cultivate the media. They do a fabulous job of it. And one thing the media despises is companies with richly paid CEOs, stockpiling money rather than hiring.

 

We now know that, despite Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's assurances to the contrary, the administration will let the capital gains and dividend taxes go all the way back up. The tax rate on dividends for the middle class and upper-middle class, as well as the upper class, is going to ordinary income levels, as this administration thinks the stock market is the plaything of the rich. We know that capital gains are viewed as the scourge of the hard left -- as the only people with capital gains are wealthy -- in this administration's heavily left-leaning orientation.

 

But the levy that is missing is the tax on companies that don't hire. I am predicting right now, right here, that we will see a tax on those earnings not being put to work hiring. It's too juicy.