Stockpickr: Barron's Roundup

Editor's Note: Welcome to Stockpickr's "Barron's Roundup." Each weekend, James Altucher presents Stockpickr portfolios related to articles in the latest issue of Barron's.

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30 Indispensable CEOs: Barron's cover story was on the 30 most-indispensable CEOs. The list includes Berkshire Hathaway's(BRKA Quote) Warren Buffett and Apple's(AAPL Quote) Steve Jobs. We compiled a portfolio of all those companies. We also compiled a "hate list" of companies whose CEOs recently were removed from Barron's list. Among them: Genentech(DNA Quote).

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Shorts and Longs in the Subprime Sector: "'Subprime is today's dot-com -- the pin that pricks a much larger bubble' in asset-dependent America," Morgan Stanley's chief economist Stephen Roach is quoted saying in the latest issue of Barron's. "'To me, the real debate is about "spillovers" -- whether the housing downturn will spread to the rest of the economy.'"

Here are a few companies that will continue to feel the effects of the mortgage fallout, both on the long side and the short side. One of the short picks, surprising to me, was Bankrate(RATE Quote).

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Bullish and Bearish: This is a portfolio containing stocks that were the focus of bullish or bearish stories in the most recent Barron's. There were bullish stories this week on Starbuck's(SBUX Quote) and CMGI(CMGI Quote).

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Barron's Insider Purchases: This week's insider purchases. We provide a little more color on who is doing the buying. This week's list includes American Oriental Bioengineering(AOB Quote), Genzyme(GENZ Quote) and more.

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Barron's Activist Situations: Each week Barrons picks out the most interesting situations where activist investors are clamoring for change.

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Litigation Risks: Barron's had a fascinating article this week about how to identify potential longs and shorts depending on the kind of litigation the companies are involved in. We made a portfolio of the longs and shorts that Barron's identified.

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Veteran Affairs Index: an article about why it would be beneficial to buy shares in publicly traded companies that are major contractors for the Department of Veterans Affairs. "In 2005, the latest year for which data are available, 13 of the top 20 contracts went to publicly traded outfits," the article says. "If you had shares in the winners of those 13 at the start of that year and held them until last Tuesday, you would have seen this portfolio appreciate by 43%." We include all the picks for 2007.

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Research Reports: Every week Barron's publishes research reports on various small-cap companies. We provide a portfolio of those stocks, along with synopses of the reports.