Checkfree buyout means Yared strikes gold — again

Sorry if this reads like a broken record, but credit is due again to the Yoda of the bull market.

Georges Yared wrote up 25 stocks for the next 25 years in a wonderful series at bloggingstocks.com a few months back. Since then, there's been nothing but upside for his well-selected companies. The latest to get bought out is Checkfree (CKFR), which will be sold to Fiserve for $4.4 billion. It's the third of his 25 to be acquired already.

Read his analysis and enjoy.

Morningstar's '07 picks

At the start in the year, Morningstar sung the praises of five stocks, and I've been tracking them.

The five are Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Checkfree Corp. (CKFR), Getty Images (GYI), Marsh & McLennan (MMC) and United Technologies (UTX). How have they done so far?

ADP > Then: $48.15. Now: $47.95. Change: -0.4%.
CKFR > Then: $36.72. Now: $40.46. Change: +10.2%.
GYI > Then: $49.43. Now: $50.50. Change: +2.1%.
MMC > Then: $28.84. Now: $30.20. Change: +4.7%.
UTX > Then: $64.26. Now: $76.03. Change: +18.3%.

Clearly, UTX was the best pick of the bunch. These are relatively conservative choices. All but CKFR have P/Es 23 and under.

Overall, on a weighted basis, Morningstar's quintet are up 7.8%. Not bad, not good, but definitely safe in a risky market. Owners of these stocks can sleep pretty well at night.