Unseemly, perhaps, but the fact is that in a year of exploding corporate scandal and retribution, it has been good to be bad. Not legally bad--just a little sinful. Profit, so fleeting on much of Wall Street, has come easily to firms catering to humanity's weakness for fatty foods, strong drink, wastrel ways, and carnal passions. Take Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes. The firm's net income rose 14 percent in the second quarter, and its stock price, despite a recent swoon induced by antismoking litigation, has held its own, outperforming the S&P 500 index by 27 percent this year.

Not long ago, firms trading in vice were under attack, and not just from moralists. Analysts questioned whether "old world" consumer-goods companies could function in the "new economy." No longer. "People want business models they can understand," says Rich Carter, U.S. equity market strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston, who recommended a "vice squad" of stocks a year ago.

While the products of fiber-optics makers and software designers had great potential, they were difficult to value. "It was new and complicated, and because of that, management could play games," says Manny Goldman, a consultant and former tobacco and beverage industry analyst. The so-called sin stocks, by contrast, had fewer places to hide failure. And they had less failure to hide. Despite an economy that slogged through 2001, people continued to buy bigger homes outfitted with larger home video systems and kitchens brimming with expensive food and drink. And companies that indulge these and other human weaknesses indulged their shareholders as well. Meanwhile, so-called socially responsible U.S. equity mutual funds trailed the overall market.

How then to construct a portfolio on the premise that if moral perfection is unattainable, there must be ways, legally, to profit from that deficiency? Find firms that sell to the darkest recesses of the heart from which emanate the seven deadly sins. Here are hot picks from the seven categories of damnable vice:

Gluttony: There's a difference between sating one's hunger and gluttony--it's the difference between a glass of milk and a Big Gulp. With obesity on the rise, it's no surprise that many firms in the girth business have done well. Shares of Diageo, owner of Burger King and Johnnie Walker whisky, are up 7 percent over the past 52 weeks (the time frame used in all following comparisons). Top brewer Anheuser-Busch is up 8 percent. Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, is up 15 percent. Crave virtue? Go invest in Hain Celestial Group, maker of Celestial Seasoning Teas and soy burgers: Its shares are down 33 percent.

Lust: Sex may sell, but it doesn't go public. Other than Playboy Enterprises, firms that specialize in lust generally are closely held and relatively tiny. It's tough to find a "pure play" for lust, because most firms that titillate for a living also market non-salacious fare. Short of starting up their own adult video companies or online sites, investors will have to settle for buying shares of cable companies, which make millions of dollars from pay-per-view adult movies. Another lust play: Church & Dwight, up 16 percent, and maker of, among other things, Trojan condoms.

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