Investing

No matter. All-star investors bet on growth over the very long term. They know that:

make investors billions always begin as growth stocks.The best of them feature massive and identifiable competitive advantages.Growth as a strategy has the capacity to deliver 20% or greater annual returns for decades at a time. Some evidence supports the notion that those companies with stronger governance have lower risk, increased profitability, and higher valuations. Which means companies with poor corporate governance could be targeted by shareholder activists, hedge funds, or short-sellers. In short, they could be ripe for a fall. Smart investors like Warren Buffett or Marty Whitman love it when their stocks are suddenly selling at bargain-basement prices. For them, these companies become no-brainer buys. And all of that has left everyone terrified. The long-term future simply doesn't matter all that much to a company that risks oblivion in the next week if it can't roll over its maturing debt or cover tomorrow's margin call. 1. They're self-funded. Top stocks produce bushels of free cash flow. Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) and BP (NYSE: BP) are perfect examples of this. Combined, they've produced more than $19 billion in FCF over the past 12 months alone.

Williams' approach was amazingly simple:

• Get a good ball to hit.
• Proper thinking.
• Be quick with the bat.

I'm probably not alone
The lion's share of mutual fund assets are tied up in large companies. In the list of the largest U.S. mutual funds, there's not a single small-cap-focused fund in the bunch. What's more, the S&P 500-tracking SPDRs exchange-traded fund had net cash inflows of $35 billion in 2008 -- by far the biggest of any ETF.

And while institutions account for a fair chunk of that inflow, the overall numbers are more startling. All told, SPDRs has more than $77 billion in assets; its small-cap cousin, the iShares Russell 2000 Index , has less than $9 billion.

There is, however, an easy way to increase your odds of finding the stocks that will beat the market. At Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's investing community of more than 125,000 members, we've found that five-star stocks, as a group, substantially outperform the broader market -- to the tune of 12 percentage points on an annualized basis from November 2006 to July 2008. There is, however, an easy way to increase your odds of finding the stocks that will beat the market. At Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's investing community of more than 125,000 members, we've found that four- and five-star stocks, as a group, have outperformed the broader market -- to the tune of seven and 12 percentage points, respectively -- on an annualized basis from November 2006 to July 2008.

Managers at firms such as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), and Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) take great pride in the fact that they've increased their dividend each year for decades running. However, yields still average less than 3% for dividend-paying U.S. stocks, so dividends alone are not likely to propel your portfolio far into the black during topsy-turvy markets.

But if you add writing covered call options to large, dividend-paying stocks, you have a safe and celebrated strategy for creating both extra income and better returns.

Yes, it's tough proclaiming yourself a bull after a year in which every bull became a steer.

But there are a few perks. Like getting the profits that come from buying stocks at what could be some of the best prices you'll ever see.

But in "This Just In," we don't simply tell you what the analysts said. We'll also show you whether they know what they're talking about. To help, we've enlisted Motley Fool CAPS, our tool for rating stocks and analysts alike. With CAPS, we'll be tracking the long-term performance of Wall Street's best and brightest -- and its worst and sorriest, too. But with almost 3 million stock recommendations on nearly 5,400 stocks, not to mention those 125,000 member portfolios and countless member blogs, where should a Fool start? There's no right answer, but I thought I'd kick you off on your travels with some of the best of the community over the past week. With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Alliance Resource's business, and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now. With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Heinz's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.