Three Stocks Picks for 2010 by James Altucher

James Altucher gives three stock picks he is thankful for and stocks that could bank a decent return in 2010.  Those stocks include: Assured Guaranty (AGO), STEC Inc. (STEC), and Wellcare Health (WCG).  Altucher owns shares of all three of these companies.

Here are the picks and links to Google Finance:

Via the WSJ.com -- It’s Thanksgiving and basically the year is over. If you’re working on any deals, it’s unlikely they will close before year-end. If you own stocks, you might have a nice run-up by the end of the year. But I’m most thankful for the stocks and economic realities that I think will drive performance in 2010.

1.) Municipal defaults will be almost nonexistent. When the market was collapsing last year, mortgage insurers Ambac and MBIA fell apart, mostly because they began dabbling in the dangerous but lucrative game of insuring toxic mortgage-backed securities. Their fair-haired competitor, Assured Guaranty (AGO), avoided this arena.

Now that the dust is cleared, MBIA and Ambac are practically out of business and AGO is practically assured a monopoly in this arena. JP Morgan recently came out with a $42 price target as a minimum (the stock is in the $23s), and the stock could earn up to $6 a share next year as the municipal insurance business continues to churn forward with largely zero defaults. (Historically, municipal bonds have a 0.1% default rate, and this year so far they have about a 0.14% default rate – no cause for alarm.) I own AGO shares.

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