Hot stocks for 2011: our panel of professional stock pickers pit their prowess against each other--and an 8-year-old with a Magic 8 Ball.

• Position: FEATURE - Discussion

BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and it's been almost that long--since the January 1983 issue--that we've been polling the pros, asking some of the state's top stock pickers to select the North Carolina companies whose shares they think will be the best performers in the year ahead.

PANELISTS' PICKS FOR 2011 Company Ticker Headquarters Industry Mkt. Duke Energy Corp. DUK Charlotte Energy N Family Dollar Stores FDO Matthews Discount stores N Inc. Insteel Industries IIIN Mount Airy Steel wire O Inc. Laboratory Corporation LH Burlington Medical testing N of America Holdings Lowe's Cos. LOW Mooresville Hardware stores N Martin Marietta MLM Raleigh Building N Materials Inc. materials Nucor Corp. NUE Charlotte Steel N Park Sterling Bank PSTB Charlotte Banking O Peoples Bancorp of PEBK Newton Banking O North Carolina Inc. Polypore International PPO Charlotte Battery parts, N Inc. filters RF Micro Devices Inc. RFMD Greensboro Semiconductors O Salix Pharmaceuticals SLXP Morrisville Drugs O Ltd. Company Ticker Price on 52-week range One-year 11/26/10 change * Duke Energy Corp. DUK $17.52 $15.47-18.60 11.0% Family Dollar Stores Inc. FDO 50.67 27.13-51.13 66.1 Insteel Industries Inc. IIIN 10.29 7.73-13.63 (8.0) Laboratory Corporation of LH 80.87 69.49-84.00 10.3 America Holdings Lowe's Cos. LOW 22.24 19.35-28.54 3.1 Martin Marietta Materials MLM 84.74 71.50-100.33 2.8 Inc. Nucor Corp. NUE 37.54 35.71-50.72 (7.1) Park Sterling Bank PSTB 5.35 5.27-8.95 (14.4) Peoples Bancorp of North PEBK 5.00 3.95-7.84 1.8 Carolina Inc. Polypore International PPO 33.11 11.34-36.99 185.2 Inc. RF Micro Devices Inc. RFMD 7.31 3.65-7.55 70.0 Salix Pharmaceuticals SLXP 44.85 22.15-46.39 96.8 Ltd. N: New York Stock Exchange O: Over the counter, Nasdaq * adjusted for splits and dividends Not only have participants had to go up against each other, but some years we've compared their choices with those by less traditional sources of financial insight, among them a trio of psychics, an astrologer and professional-wrestling legend Ric Flair. Other times we've resorted to chance: using a bingo machine, tossing darts at our annual ranking of public companies and even loosing the dogs on them (or rather, on canine treats scribed with stock symbols). Never have we repeated ourselves--well, we did do the dog bit twice, but it was with different dogs and different treats--until this, the return of Jackson Martin Kinney.

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Rationale for the rematch: nepotism. He is, after all, eldest grandson of the magazine's editor in chief and son of its publisher. Besides, he didn't do all that well in his first appearance, back in 2005, when the average return of his picks was -23.7%. That might say more about his sweet tooth than savvy. Barely 2 years old, he had been...