"I'm obsessive compulsive," says Bryant Bloedorn, 35. "I like to sit there and watch them all day, every day." Bloedorn is talking about his stocks, of course. His Marketocracy portfolio gained 35% in 2005, but he claims that he made $150,000 in his real-life cash account in December 2005 alone. This prompted him to quit his job selling bandwidth for telecom companies in Florida. Bloedorn, 35, is a college dropout who spent time as a stockbroker in the mid-1990s. That is when he caught the investing bug.

Although Bloedorn watches his stocks compulsively, he doesn't trade very often. He looks at 14 criteria to pick stocks: mostly fundamentals, like revenue growth of 25%. He also has the slightly unorthodox requirement that institutional ownership should be low, because he says that when institutions already own shares, all they can do is sell them.

Like Barnes, Bloedorn focuses on riskier stocks. He bought Taser at a split-adjusted $1.36, and Chinese Internet-company Sina for $1.25, both of which had quadruple-digit gains. But he's lost half his investment in stocks like Wireless Xcessories, which sells cell-phone accessories, and computer-systems maker SteelCloud, which he bought at $3 but now sells for $2.

Amateur Guru: Bill Marcus
2005 return: 31%
Age: 52
Hometown: Woodland, Calif.
Day Job: utilities consultant
Specialty: socially conscious small-cap stocks with low P/Es
Web site: www.ValueForum.com

How many investors can say that they gained 40% in 2001? Bill Marcus can, because at the time, he was largely invested in debt securities. Since then, the 52-year old utilities consultant has moved over to stocks--and his performance has remained strong. In 2002, he gained 20%; in 2003, more than 100%; in 2004, he gained 40%; and last year, he added a cool 31% to his portfolio.

Marcus likes small-caps, because he feels there are more market inefficiencies in small-cap stocks, and he likes stocks that have been beaten up enough that they trade at low P/Es. At the moment, he's finding the best value in foreign stocks. His portfolio is 70% invested in Canadian stocks, and much of that is in high-yielding investment trusts.

Marcus finds most of his picks through stock screens at Yahoo! Finance and discussions at ValueForum. He typically screens for stock that have P/Es of less-than 10.0 and positive earnings growth. Marcus avoids companies that don't pass his personal social screen. He won't invest in nuclear power, defense contractors, gambling companies, or companies that operate in dictatorships or show "gross disrespect for their workers.