The Anger Management Portfolio.

Rather than curse the darkness you should buy stock in a candle company, if it has good earnings momentum. Pick up a few shares of ExxonMobil (42, XOM) and you will be less distressed every time OPEC rigs another price hike. Pick up enough shares and you can cover your fuel bills with the dividends. Lots of people spend their lives trying to outguess the market. We can't all succeed at this venture. But we can immunize ourselves to some of the economy's slings and arrows. The concept here is to buy just enough of a few key vendors that you are indifferent to their price gouging. Anyone over the age of 50 ought to have some pharma shares. If you are on statins, go for Pfizer (36, PFE) or Merck (45, MRK). Shares will probably do you a lot more good in your old age than the new Medicare coverage. International Paper (42, IP) is awfully expensive at 65 times trailing earnings. But think of the psychic rewards. Do you ever read magazines? IP makes the paper stock for those renewal cards that flutter into your lap. Merck, trading at half its high of a few years ago, is a bargain because Wall Street is disappointed with the product pipeline.