Naughty or Nice: 7 Stocks Topping Santa's Lists

WalletPop Editor

The Fiscal Times

The holiday season is approaching fast, meaning Santa Claus is busy making his list and checking it twice. In the spirit of the season, we at The Fiscal Times offer Santa our help in the form of a short list of companies with the kind of reward that their 2012 market performance warrants. In some cases, that's a stocking stuffed with chocolate, juicy mandarin oranges, silver dollars and other goodies; in others, nothing but some lumps of coal.

Before we get to our list, we should note that a few companies fall into neither the naughty or nice camp – or perhaps both. For instance, in many respects Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has had an excellent year, rolling out new versions of its iPhone and iPad and introducing a new, smaller iPad, as well as fighting off Samsung's threat to its patents. But the Android operating system continues to nibble away at Apple's dominance, and investors have driven the share price down so much recently that Apple can't qualify for any of our rewards this Christmas.

But there are other examples of companies whose management have taken particularly intelligent or foolish decisions over the course of 2012 that deserve to be recognized – or named (yet again) and shamed. Each of these companies should be at or close to the top of Santa's two lists.

SLIDESHOW: 7 NAUGHTY AND NICE STOCKS OF 2012

Knight isn't the only one of this year's crop of losers that likely won't survive as independent companies until this time next year. JC Penney's future may be in doubt, absent a restructuring under the protection of a bankruptcy court. It remains to be seen whether the advent of the BlackBerry 10 in January will be enough to save Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) from a dire fate, though the company hasn't done much to make the "nice" list this year. And Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) is facing an impossible tradeoff: Watch its sales vanish to online competitors, or come close to wiping out its margins in order to hang on to market share.

While the stock market seems likely to end the year with a respectable if not awe-inspiring gain – barring any last-minute shocks – it has been anything but a tranquil year, and outperforming has required the kind of smart execution on the part of financial managers that is hard to find at the best of times. Nor are there many signs that headwinds will turn to tailwinds in the new year. That Grinch-like market environment makes the solid gains achieved by some companies all the more impressive, even if it doesn't excuse the missteps made by others.

Editor's Note: This article by Suzanne McGee originally appeared on The Fiscal Times.