This week's Barrons featured the first part of the annual Barron's roundtable. Included in there were report cards for last year's January roundtable and also the mid year update.

The stock picks were dreadful. Of course in a down 38% they are going to be dreadful. As Meryl Witmer worked through her 2009 picks she shared the logic and process she uses as a value investor and I thought well this is probably similar if not identical to the process she has shared in years past. I can remember past years picks by Witmer being very good with this process but not so for 2008.

So scrap the process? Of course not. The point here is that in a bear market bottom's up stock picking is unlikely to swim against the tide of a 38% decline. This has been the case before and will be the case in future bear markets.

The picture is the entry to the Boca Raton Resort which is where I am for the Inside ETFs Conference. This place is swanky.