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The first major economic act of presidential hopeful Barack Obama will be to add Hillary Clinton to the lower half of the democratic ticket. If he does not, he will be throwing caution to the wind.

All indications are that he does not want to do this and hopes he will not have to -- but he may not have any choice.

It is just good business and if he is too stubborn, too arrogant, or just misguided by favorable polling numbers, he should think again. There are many Hillary supporters who will find McCain more centrist than Obama and switch parties. There will be very few, if any, to the right of McCain who will vote for Obama. They are more likely to not vote than support Obama.

Adding Hillary Clinton, in most people's eyes, will slam dunk the presidential race and if Obama does not make this tough decision, putting success in front of politics and personalities, then I am afraid all his talk of being able to stand up to special interests and take the heat in the kitchen is just that.

The stock market was down yesterday and it is down again today. Bearish sentiment is roaming through Wall Street right now, so I thought I would look back on another occasion when the market was going through similar turmoil and I wrote about the following eight stocks, which I thought would be "safe havens" in such a storm.

Six of the eight did well and two did not, and of course one of those two was a disaster. Among the losers, I do not think anyone is fretting about UPS, which is still one of the few triple-A rated companies along with Berkshire Hathaway. It has been well reported that the slowing economy and higher fuel prices have been the major culprits affecting UPS's earnings. In the case of WaMu, it's demise has also been well reported, but at the time I recommended it WaMu had a stellar reputation of growth and high yield for over two decades. There is no hiding, it turned out to be a lousy pick and an ANTI-SAFE Haven

NOT SAFE:

United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) closed Monday at $65.30 down from $78.40; a 16.71% loss

Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) closed Monday at $4.21 down from $45.50; a 98% loss.

Fortunately the remaining six picks have done very, very well. If you had bought the pool, the average gain over the last two years would have been 7.14%. Adding the dividends over the two years would have raised this to 13.14%.

During my various commutes over the past week I have been hearing a new radio commercial about Intuitive Surgical Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG). The City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles is advertising their Di Vinci robotic surgical procedures to attract patients.

They use the catch phrase "The science of saving lives" while promoting less invasive surgical procedures, shorter hospital stays, and faster recovery. These are well-known themes among the medical profession and investors but it is the first time I have heard the story promoted for a competitive advantage among hospitals. I am sure it won't be the last.

Certainly this will raise the bar among other hospitals competing for similar business and simply to keep their Di Vinci operating rooms productive, cost effective, and profitable. It also means that any hospital without the equipment will soon be deemed second rate, if they are not already.

Perhaps we will soon be hearing competing hospitals bragging about having multiple Di Vinci's or more trained doctors or the highest number of procedures or new procedures. Where will it end? When it is common place and every hospital is using the system.

Have you heard any radio advertising from hospitals in your city? Fans of Elvis Costello can check out Radio, Radio" at Last fm. here.

ISRG closed last Friday at $299.17 and is trading down slightly this morning. It has been hovering around $300 for the past two weeks.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. DISCLOSURE: I currently own shares of ISRG and have no relationship whatsoever with "Last fm" ,but I was reminded of the song and it is way cool.

Reporting on the daily appreciation of MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) over the last few weeks has made me feel like a play-by-play announcer. One comment in an earlier post on MBIA raked me over the coals for writing when the stock was up 26%, only a few days after I suggested readers take a look at some crushed financials in Serious Money: Tempting fate with 10 financials. He did this even though on the day he commented it was up by 74%.

I was just reporting the jump but the reader took me to task for bragging when nothing should be judged so quickly, and my previous financial calls were bad. Well, MBIA has now leaped from $4.92 three weeks ago to $11.22 at Friday's close for a gain of 126%. This is BIG news even if it happened quickly -- in particular because it happened quickly.

The reasons may be numerous. Perhaps it is a combination of company stock buybacks and short covering. Perhaps it is the periodic comments in Barron's about the value of the company based on its current book of business and the fact it needs no new business to be profitable. In its last earnings report, MBIA did suprise to the upside substantially. Last Friday was certainly related to the fact that it was taken off the watch-list for the next three months as the ratings agencies supported MBIA's rating of AA.

MBIA has a current price-to-book of 0.26, a P/S ratio of 0.76 and P/CF of 1.57, so maybe it is still worth a look.

Update: Final, closed up to $11.83, $0.61, (+ 5.44%). MBIA stands at $140% gain.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of MBI.

Analysts have been negative on the agri-business processing sector recently, but the stocks have been shedding value for two months and they may have to reconsider. Bunge Ltd. (NYSE: BG) is delivering 42% growth according to Smart Money.

The stock is down 16% from my original post recommending it for 2008 and it is trading down more this morning. However, I have not changed my opinion about the prospects of the company and my original rational has remained solid despite the wild swings in the stock over the past few months.

Last year when I posted Serious Money: ADM, Bunge, Potash Corp. -- it's a hungry world it looked like there was no downside, and even though it is disappointing to see the stock down now, all I can say is the investment opportunity is even better. As they are a leading producer of soy and soy products, how can one resist this level of growth at a P/E of 8, half the market average?

After seven months of tracking my 2008 picks -- Wham! -- I went from beating the indices and Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) to being humbled by the market. However difficult it is to display your failings, once again I will share all. This is the low point since I posted the original story Chasing Value: Final list -- 8 stocks for 2008.

Only Reliance Steel & Aluminum (NYSE: RS) remained in positive territory, down from five stocks that were up in the last report. Sometimes, the reasons for the downslide were more obvious than they were in the cases for my picks. The cutting in half of Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) has been reported often, as the largest independent oil refiner in North America has had its profit margins squeezed.

Loews Corporation (NYSE: L) has been hurt by its insurance interests and helped by its holdings -- a 51% stake in Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (NYSE: DO) that has been doing well as the world remains desperate for more oil and natural gas.

The gap between the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard & Poor's 500 Index and the technology heavy NASDAQ Composite Index is narrower than in the past.

Well, the market was in the dumps yesterday and is even worse today. So this may be a good time to check on my list of stocks for those looking for equities that are stable enough to ride out this bearish storm.

This update is a spot-check of my earlier post Serious Money: Five stable stocks for troubled times, to see how my picks are holding up so far. Closing prices are for August 12, 2008.

The standard for comparison will be the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, which closed on June 30, 2008 at 1,280.00. The following are the five stocks with closing prices from July 1.

1) Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) -- when recommended the stock closed at $64.34 and paid a 2.89% dividend yield. It finished at $71.70 -- up 11.44%

2) Teva Pharmaceuticals ADR (NASDAQ: TEVA) -- when recommended the stock closed at $45.80 and paid a 1% dividend yield. It finished at $46.41-- up 1.3%.

3) Chubb Corp. (NYSE: CB) -- when recommended the stock closed at $49.01 and paid a 2.64% dividend yield. It finished at $48.39 -- down 1.26%.

Although Newcastle Investment Corp. (NYSE: NCT) continues to post losses, the real estate investment trust's board voted to maintain a quarterly dividend of 25 cents a share. The dividend is payable on July 30 to shareholders of record as of July 7. This continued support of the dividend leaves the stock above a 15% yield as of the close yesterday at $6.67.

Newcastle reported a loss in funds from operations of $87.7 million, or $1.66 a share, in the April-June period, compared with a gain of $34 million, or 64 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. The company booked a $63.2 million charge related to its sub-prime securities portfolio. Revenue fell nearly 40% to $115 million from $191.9 million in the second quarter of 2007.

This is a highly leveraged company that is trying to ride out a turbulent real estate and financial market. It holds a wide variety of industrial, commercial and retail notes, with about 10% of the portfolio in residential notes. It has been hurt by the collapse of the commercial mortgage-backed securities market (CMBS), which does not show signs of recovery in the near term.

Negative earnings and high leverage are not inviting to most investors right now. But I think the company will survive and it is paying a very high yield and has been for quite some time.

After a rather nasty stock slide in earnings, share price and reputation MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI), the holding company for MBIA Insurance, has finally reported good news for its depressed investors; for the second quarter of 2008 the company's net income was $1.7 billion, or $7.14 per share, an improvement, compared with $211.8 million, or $1.61 per share for the corresponding period of 2007(see more earnings news).

MBIA is generating revenue from existing business but new business has been harder to come by since Moody's and Standard & Poors both downgraded the company from a financial rating of AAA to AA.

Since I recommended the stock on July 29, 2008 it is up 74% rising from $4.92 to the close last Friday of $8.57. It is trading mid-day at $8.80. I will update after todays close.

In other news the company has also announced a law suit against Bill Ackman who shorted the stock and made many public claims that MBIA was destined to become insolvent. MBIA (MBI) And Ackman: Killing The Messenger.

Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, John McCain is going to be all smiles as we approach the November election. If you are a conspiracy theorist, or just find it a curious irony as I do, you must be noting that, just this week, the Federal Reserve decided to leave the Fed loan rate at 2%, the Iraq and U.S. governments are negotiating a withdrawal timetable for our troops, and oil prices are falling fast.

All of these headline-worthy items will benefit the Republicans more than the Democrats. Furthermore, all of these improvements will help the folks on Wall Street and Main Street. The stock market is way up today, they say on dropping oil prices: Stocks jump as oil prices fall sharply.

This has the taint of political engineering or "electioneering," even if it is just coincidence. Maybe the world is just happy to see Dubya go into retirement ... who knows?

Earlier I posted Obama's $1000 giveaway is a take away! and now it's time to rant about Dear John. He is on record as claiming he can balance the federal budget by the end of his first term without raising taxes. I think we have heard that before. It's not going to happen. Why do politicians insist on uttering such nonsense?

If Barack Obama is receiving advice from "my pal Warren" then he must not be listening. There is no way that Warren Buffett, the national debt hawk, would support Obama's stupid idea of giving another $1,000 back to every family in America. It is reported that he would pay for this by creating a windfall profit tax on oil companies.

This give-away program is an attempt to buy votes plain and simple. It would add to the national debt, discourage oil companies from investing and worse it would handicap American companies more than others and mortgage more of our children's futures.

The last thing the the people of the United States need is more deficit spending. If we did tax oil companies, which I am against, I would only support using the funds for expanding education, research and development in science and engineering with the goal of maintaining our waning leadership in technology.

Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 225, so I decided to peg the financial stocks I wrote about investing in as a pool. We are often accused of bragging on the good days and having memory loss on the bad so I wanted to be transparent and forthright on the downside.

To my surprise the financial stock pool is actually up 9.96% on average. Six stocks increased in value, two were down and two stocks were even money. The big winner was MBIA Inc (NYSE: MBI) up over 68%!

In the same time frame the DJIA has gone from 11,397.56 to 11,431.43 (even) and the S&P has gone from 1263.2 to 1266.06 last night, for basically no change either.

The market is rebounding as I write so I expect the news is even better. Although, this pool of stocks beat the market so far in the short run, I hope to track this group for a year, or at least until Major League Baseball's spring training opens in 2009.

If you want to track the story with me the first post was Serious Money: 10 finance stocks as the market bounces. I remain stubbornly optimistic that this is a buying opportunity and investors will be sorry they did not have the courage to buy stocks when they were hated. The follow-up was Serious Money: Tempting fate with 10 financials

The initial prices are as of July 29, 2008.

In a conversation with an attorney friend of mine, who happens to be a woman, she asked for some general financial guidance. During the course of the conversation it occurred to me that women need to save more than men. There are many reasons for this, here are a few:

The first and most obvious reason women need to save more than men is that they live longer -- often without the support of a significant other. Living longer and living alone cost more money.

Second of all, women still do not have complete earnings parity with men. Some of this has to do with job type and some with history. But nevertheless, we are not there yet. If there is a 15% disparity, then a woman is starting at a disadvantage whether saving for her retirement in the future or for buying a gallon of gas today. This can only be made up by saving more and investing more. This is a worthy goal except that with less resources the difficulty is exacerbated.

Well, things played out as I thought and Apple, Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) closed on Friday August 1, 2008 at a price of $156.66 and opened pennies down today. I will be the first one to admit that a few of my calls have been terrible, but this one was right on target.

Quoting from one of last years posts, "However, I thought Apple might be worth up to $150 and a month later was willing to consider $160 and that is where I stood." So I'm on record pegging the stock between $150 and $160. Having made the call on the money I will now tell the world that a lot of this game is luck, but that is all I thought it was worth.

Why two rights? One of our brighter commentors, Beltway Greg had pegged Apple around $200 a year out and it made the number in December 2007 long before even he thought it might and I gave him credit at the time. I was looking farther out and as the current price evidences I was correct also. But what's wrong with this picture? When I wrote, I tried to figure what I thought the stock was worth as did Greg.

Several of my editors and colleagues have commented about me sticking my neck out calling the bottom of the market two weeks ago and then suggesting it's time to buy the financial sector, (see: Serious Money: Tempting fate with 10 financials) however, I stand by this theme and this morning MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) is lending support to the idea.

MBIA closed yesterday to end the month at $5.93 and is up 24% to $7.36 as I write at 9:04 AM, PST. The stock is down 90% from it's 52-week high of $68.98. They have announced an earnings conference call for August 8, 2008.

The company is still losing money giving it a negative P/E. However, it is maintaining a substantial dividend cut the dividend in February (Yahoo and AOL still show TTM) and Barron's has repeatedly noted that if this company does not get crushed by it's leverage, it's projected revenue based on existing book with no new business might make this a $40 dollar stock. I have not done their level of analysis so my recommendation was based on the pool of ten stocks and only a few of them bouncing back.

The story is worth following so look for an update later and another report next week. UPDATE: Today's closing numbers $7.67, up $1.74 +29.34%

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of MBI.