Sometimes Barron's has moneymakers where you least expect it. This week, for example, in the Barron's Roundtable, Archie MacAllaster offers his picks, along with Felix Zulauf, Mario Gabelli and Meryl Buchanan.

Meryl had some good ones last year, and this year her pick of Media General (MEG.A:Amex - news - boards) seems to ring true. Her others though, from Claire's Stores (CLE:NYSE - news - boards) to Topps (TOPP:Nasdaq - news - boards), R.H. Donnelley (RHD:NYSE - news - boards) and Interstate Bakeries (IBC:NYSE - news - boards), are less than inspired. Any pop seems to be worth taking, although I don't think there is anything that will move here.

Zulauf's stock-picking abilities are almost nil, so I won't bore you with his picks, other than to say it sure is time for some new blood at the Roundtable. Give that guy the hook.

Gabelli's such a quandary. On the one hand, he's a lot of fun and he had the good horse sense to hire Howard Ward a while ago -- Ward is fabulous. On the other hand, he comes off as such a highfalutin hack in the Roundtable that he has become painful to read. He is almost cartoonish in his back-to-the-well picks, almost all of which have been on his list and done nothing for years. He mixes them up as takeover names, to which I say, don't mess with takeover bait if the fundies suck, and in this case almost all of them do.

Which brings us to MacAllaster. A few years ago, I wrote up a vicious send-up of the Roundtable. That was when it was run by a couple of old Barron's hands and had the chumminess of the Porcellian Club with all of the charm of Tammany Hall. In the parody, I made a point of saying how there was zero accountability in the Roundtable and that it was one of the laziest journalist efforts I could ever recall. I know they were all ticked off because they proceeded to savage me three times. I guess anybody who takes on Barron's gets that thrice-over treatment. But I could care less about what Barron's says. Anyway, I made one mistake in that satire: I lumped in ol' Archie with the rest of the Barron's hacks. That was a big mistake because, sure enough, his picks were far and away much better than anyone else's -- both over a one- and a five-year time frame. Archie, quite frankly, is money in the bank.

With that in mind, I suggest that you take a swing with Vesta Insurance Group (VTA:NYSE - news - boards) because Archie's best work is with insurance. I know I was short Vesta for three years, and when I read about all of the changes that had been made, I was salivating to buy this $5 number. I also thought Wachovia (WB:NYSE - news - boards) and FleetBoston (FBF:NYSE - news - boards) make huge amounts of sense, but then again, I have liked the financials for months. Community Bank (CBU:NYSE - news - boards) and Radian (RDN:NYSE - news - boards) seem like guesswork, and I no more trust Archie with the Net -- he likes Terra Networks (TRLY:Nasdaq - news - boards) -- than I would trust Bezos. (Can't wait for that conference call this week.)

So Vesta's the winner from this week's Barron's.

The only other article of merit was the hatchet job on Ron Perelman. Looks like the PR gang around Perelman told him that his PR couldn't get worse if he opened up a little to the press. Wrong! Ron's one of those guys who has never made money for his partners. I was hoping he would have said, "This time I am going to let everyone win with Revlon (REV:NYSE - news - boards)." But that's not in the cards. If Revlon makes it, you won't make a dime. He'll make it all. Somehow. If Revlon lifts, maybe you put out some.