Beat the Street: Another Full-Short Press

Editor's note: All winning portfolios and players are subject to verification.

The final week of TheStreet.com's Beat the Street stock-picking contest ended, not surprisingly, with stellar short-investing proving once again the winning strategy. M. Oppman led the pack this week with an all-short portfolio of financial and airline stocks, beating nearly 4,000 other players.

The financial sector continued to get thumped as unremitting pressure from the credit markets and Goldman Sachs' downgrade of U.S. investment banks crushed stocks in the sector again. Airlines did not have it any easier as intractable high energy prices wrecked havoc on share prices.

M. Oppman, under the player name "Mardan59," finished with a portfolio value of $307,922.88 and a not-too-shabby 23.2% weekly gain.

In his bearish portfolio, Oppman held positions in MF Global (MF Quote - Cramer on MF - Stock Picks), Washington Mutual (WM Quote - Cramer on WM - Stock Picks), PMI Group (PMI Quote - Cramer on PMI - Stock Picks), MGIC Investments (MTG Quote - Cramer on MTG - Stock Picks), MBIA (MBI Quote - Cramer on MBI - Stock Picks) and UAL (UAUA Quote - Cramer on UAUA - Stock Picks).

Full marks to M. Oppman for beating the Street and for excellent ursine stock-picking!

To find out when the next stock-picking contest will launch and to get the latest news and information from TheStreet.com, sign up here for our free newsletters.

For additional views on the market and investing, check out what the 45+ Wall Street pros of RealMoney have to say. From master investor Jim Cramer to top chartist Helene Meisler, contrarian Doug Kass to markets commentator Vince Farrell, you'll get the 360-degree perspective you need to survive and potentially profit in these tough times. Click here for a limited-time special offer.