It’s a good thing we weren’t using real money. That’s the best that can be said after calculating the results of The News Tribune business team’s 2008 stock-picking contest. It was all a game. Nobody lost any actual cash.

And it was quite a year, with the wreckage still smoldering by the side of the road. Washington Mutual, AIG, Wachovia, Bear Stearns – the year will be remembered by investors who lost their shirts, their nerve and hope itself. Gladly we say goodbye to 2008 and the billions lost.

Of the contest – wherein you were asked last January to invest $10,000 by choosing up to three stocks – the results were dismal. From perhaps 50 entries, less than a handful picked stocks that made money.

And of those, other stocks in the same entry lost. Take reader “ronmccIII,” whose $3,000 invested in Celgene was up 19.63 percent in 2008. That’s good, except the $6,000 accompanying investment in Edge Petroleum was down 97.32 percent.

A reader known as “yourwisetalk” chose Safeco, which was up when acquired, but General Electric was down 56.30 percent. And “timber” liked SPDR Gold Trust, which was up 4.17 percent, but the accompanying investments in Ultra Petroleum and PowerShare DB Agricultural Fund were down 51.73 percent and 21.37 percent respectively.

All figures, by the way, come from Bloomberg.

And other virtual investors? Down, down, down.

The business team itself was not spared and stood with the majority. Staff writer John Gillie’s choices of Washington Mutual, General Motors and Paccar fell severely. Likewise Kelly Kearsley, who chose Starbucks, Property Investors Ventures and footwear retailer DSW. I fared no better with Amazon, down 44.65 percent; CNA Financial Corp.; and fixture-maker Crane, which came down 59.81 percent on the year.

Readers chose a variety of losers, with many taking Starbucks and a few choosing Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan. Other choices included Yahoo, Bank of Ireland, James River Coal (which was up 37.12 percent), Boeing, Ford, Red Robin, Coca-Cola, Krispy Kreme, Lowe’s and many others.

So – how to pick a winner and award the stated prize of

lunch with the team? Nobody came out ahead, so it’s difficult to say. Should the winner be he or she who earned the cold comfort of losing the least?

No. The judges have ruled that because we all lost, we all lose. Nobody seemed to envision what was coming, so there will be no free lunch.

But hope springs nonetheless. There’s always this year, the New Year.

Let’s do it all again in 2009.

The national prognosticators have made their calls.

Bob Frick at Kiplinger.com likes General Electric (GE), Diageo (DEO), Mattel (MAT), Microchip Technology (MCHP) and Briggs & Stratton (BGG).

Anne Kates Smith from Kiplinger notes choices for Charter Communications (CHTR), NutriSystem (NTRI), Ceeco Instruments (VECO), Bankrate Inc. (RATE), Fastenal (FAST), Fluor (FLR) Cummins (CMI) and Gerdau AmeriSteel (GNA).

At MSN.com, you can find tips on Deere (DE), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), VisionChina (VISN), Google (GOOG) and Thompson Creek Metals (TC), among others.

Forbes Magazine likes Altria (MO), Dell (DELL), Diamond Offshore (DO), Fluor, Pfizer (PFE) and the familiar Potash (POT).

And the team members here at the business desk have made their calls.

 • Kearsley likes Netflix (NFLX) (“you still need entertainment”); Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) (“Stock market giving you a headache? Take a Tylenol. Paper cut from cutting coupons? Have a Band-Aid”); and Google (GOOG) (“online marketing will take a bigger slice of the advertising pie”).

 • Gillie prefers Boeing (BA) (“the aerospace company will see even stronger results as air travel demand resumes”); General Electric (“a bargain despite some anxiety about its financial arm and slowing sales in some sectors”); and Alaska Airlines (ALK) (“wait until it falls along with the rest of the airline industry in early winter when fares and traffic drop to seasonal lows”).

 • Kathleen Cooper, who is imminently due to deliver her first child, has chosen to put $3,000 of her virtual treasure into Amazon (AMZN) (“I can place an emergency order for parenting books and any baby gear I didn’t know I needed”); $3,000 into Johnson & Johnson (“They make, well, everything. Notably Desitin, Tylenol and all that No More Tears stuff”); and $4,000 into Netflix (“My husband and I probably will upgrade our subscription since we’ll be held captive for a few months”).

 • I like J&J Snack Foods (JJSF) (“everybody likes snacks, whatever the economic conditions”); Senior Housing Properties Trust (SNH) (“more seniors looking for downsized homes”); and Psychiatric Solutions Inc. (PSYS), an outsourcing agency for psychiatric care (“if this gets any worse, we’ll need it”).

 • Business team leader Marcelene Edwards buys 53 shares of McDonald’s (MCD) (“closed 2008 near its 52-week high but with the economy continuing to weaken, consumer will be looking for cheap places to take their families to dinner”); 125 shares of Kroger (KR) (“The company has developed lots of store brands at lower prices. Plus its Fred Meyer chain is a Northwest company”); and 69 shares of Fluor (FLR) (“Construction spending has skidded to a halt in the last six months but with the promise of big public works projects from incoming President Barack Obama, that could change”).

 • Managing Editor Dale Phelps chooses a 45 percent distribution to Caterpillar (CAT) (“machinery for all those ‘shovel-ready’ projects”); 35 percent to Kansas City Southern (KSU) (“an improving economy will ride the rails”); and the remainder to GameStop (GME) (“someone has to sell folks games for all those Wiis, Xboxes and PlayStations”).

In a new feature this year, the team has, through a system of choices made while blindfolded, randomly chosen a final entry of three choices: Parker Drilling Co. (PKD); a health care-related real estate investment trust, or REIT, called HCP (HCP); and Nalco Holding Co. (NLC).

But enough about us.

Now it’s your turn.

If you’d like to play along, pick up to three publicly traded stocks that will do well (that will at least make money) in 2009. Assign each its share of your imaginary $10,000.

Submit your entry, including your name and the ticker symbols of the stocks, by visiting The News Tribune Biz Buzz blog at blogs.thenewstribune.com/business, or send an e-mail to c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com.

Or you may send a note by mail to C.R. Roberts at The News Tribune, PO Box 11000, Tacoma, WA 98411.

Anybody can play.

The deadline for submissions is 6 p.m. Wednesday, and the prize, should there be a winner, will again be lunch with the team.

Good luck, and remember: The stocks listed above are not recommendations. The money isn’t real.

Be careful. Have fun.

C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535

blogs.thenewstribune.com/business