gd

"Golf has Tiger Woods, novelists have Tom Clancy, and the investment community has stars such as Bruce Berkowitz, Bill Nygren, Charlie Dreifus, and Mario Gabelli," states Paul Tracy.

In his The Street Authority Market Advisor, he suggests, "These money managers are at the pinnacle of their craft." Here, he takes a look at these "celebrities" and some of their current top stock holdings.

"These money managers have all amassed prodigious gains over the years for their shareholders. Over the past few months, these gurus have come out with ringing endorsements for certain stocks. This isn't empty talk -- they are putting their money where their mouth is.

Analyst upgrades:

• Goldman upgraded Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) to Conviction Buy from Neutral and raised their target to $90 from $60. Goldman cites ICE's positioning and potential for upward EPS revisions for the upgrade.
  
• Jefferies upgraded FMC Technologies (NYSE: FTI) to Buy from Hold as they believe solid deepwater activity levels will lead to solid EPS results in 2009 and 2010. The firm raised their price target to $45 from $27.
  
• Friedman Billings upgraded Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) to Outperform from Market Perform on valuation and expects significant improvement in basis differentials for the company's Barnett production starting the second half of Q2. The firm raised their price target to $60 from $50.
• Elan Corp (NYSE: ELN) was raised to Neutral from Sell at Piper Jaffray.
  
• Banco Santander (NYSE: STD) was upgraded at Keefe Bruyette to Outperform from Market Perform.

Yesterday there was hope. Obama had just endorsed stocks for the long-term, China predicted 8% growth, and the markets staged a rather large trading rally. But it turned out to be just that: a trading rally, and a small one to boot. The lower-than-expected jobless claims and not as bad retail numbers failed to cause any follow-through buying as China's great new package was really not much more than we already knew. Yep, this was just the recipe for a great flush-out for equity investors.

Dow 6,594.44 -281.40 (-4.09%)
S&P 500 682.56 -30.31 (-4.25%)
Nasdaq 1,299.59 -54.15 (-4.00%)

Top analyst upgrades
Top analyst downgrades

Analyst upgrades:

• Banc of America/Merrill upgraded DPL Inc (NYSE: DPL) to Neutral from Underperform following the settlement agreement with staff of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on Electric Security Plan.
  
• Friedman Billings upgraded SeaBright Insurance (NYSE: SBX) to Outperform from Market Perform on valuation as they believe shares are oversold at current levels. Despite upgrading, the firm lowered its target price to $14 from $16.
  
• JP Morgan upgraded AT&T (T) to Overweight from Neutral as it believes upside earnings revisions are likely in 2009 due to the company's conservative wireline margin outlook. The firm finds the stock's valuation attractive at current levels and raised their target on shares to $28 from $24.
• Chubb (NYSE: CB) was upgraded to buy from Neutral at UBS.
  
• Cascal B.V. (NYSE: HOO) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
  
• Healthcare Realty Trust (NYSE: HR) was upgraded at Keefe Bruyette to Outperform from Market Perform.

In the News:
8 Safe Stocks to Buy Now
These household names will hold up no matter how bad things get. They include General Dynamics, Google, J&J, American Tower, Oracle, Accenture, Thermo Fischer Scientific and Automatic Date Processing.
http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/picks/archive/2008/pick1110.htm

The End of Dividends
The big dividend was a hallmark of the big bull market. Now, the dividend is going the way of extinction. Among companies you can expect to see sharply lower dividends or no dividend at all in the future are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, New York Times, Gannett, CBS and General Electric.
http://www.247wallst.com/2008/11/the-end-of-divi.html

That rumbling you heard this morning was the mad, frantic shuffling of papers and budget proposals inside the offices of defense contractors around the Washington Beltway, as they prepare to justify their appropriations amid a political shift in the nation's capital.

The Democrats, led by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, are taking over the town. And while the security needs of the post-September 11 era and two wars mean major U.S. defense spending cuts are unlikely, changes in priorities and the demands of the financial crisis could create "a dramatically different defense spending landscape" for defense contractors like Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC)," says economist Peter Dawson.

More support for troops on ground?

"What we may see from President-elect Obama is a shift toward increased U.S. Army troop strength and the basic armor and weapon systems that support them, to take stress off our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to improve results in the wars, and less emphasis on costly, high-tech weapon systems," Dawson said. "If that's the case, an Obama Administration could seek to delay production of the Navy's DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer, additional purchases of the new F-22 fighter jets, and other programs."

The DDG-1000 destroyer is jointly built by Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics (NYSE: GD). The F-22 is built by Lockheed Martin. Northrop's shares rose 44 cents to $48.50, Lockheed's gained 62 cents to $86.53, and General Dynamics fell $1.30 to $62.47 in mid-day Wednesday trading.

U.S. stock futures were lower Wednesday morning, indicating stocks may have a second day of declines. As money markets worldwide continue improving, attention has shifted to corporate earnings and concerns are growing how a global slowdown would slow them. Asian markets closed sharply lower and European stocks tumbled at the open as well. Meanwhile, oil veered below $70 a barrel again despite a probably OPEC production cut on fears the U.S. economy is headed into a sever recession that would crimp demand for oil. Today weekly crude inventories will be released.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is one company that is bucking the earnings trend. The consumer electronics giant reported results after the close Tuesday, surprising the Street with higher earnings as all three product categories showed improvement. Specifically it sold far more iPhones than expected, actually outselling market-leading BlackBerry from Research in Motion Ltd (NASDAQ: RIMM). The company, known for always lowballing estimates, gave a weak outlook that didn't affect investors sentiment much. AAPL shares, which jumped nearly 13% in after-hours trading, are up nearly 8% this morning in pre-market trade. Analysts liked in general iPhone sales with Calyon Securities upgrading Apple to Buy from Add, and Goldman Sachs recommending investors to buy shares. Still, UBS has downgraded Apple from Buy to Neutral.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO)'s show, on the other hand, was quite different than Apple's. While the stock is also up in pre-market action -- 2.7% (it was up 7% in after-hours trade Tuesday afternoon) -- it is mainly due to the severe cost cuts the internet giant has announced during the dusmal earnings release. As it was saying profit plunged 64%, Yahoo! also said it is redcucing its workforce by 10% or some 1,500 employees.

This post is part of a series in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked financial experts to name their top stock pick if McCain or if Obama wins the election.

"The GOP is traditionally known as the party that spends more on defense; thus, if McCain wins the election, one stock to benefit would be defense firm General Dynamics (NYSE: GD)," says John Reese, editor of Validea, which follows the strategies of "legendary" investors such as Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch.

"While McCain has talked tough about reforming the defense budget, he has also pledged to increase the size of the military, modernize the armed services, and push hard for strong missile defense systems -- all of which require serious spending.

"As a major producer of battle tanks and assault vehicles, armaments and munitions, battleships and nuclear submarines, and military information technology systems, this Virginia-based firm is thus likely to have quite a bit of work on its hands during a McCain presidency.

"Just as importantly, General Dynamics' finances and fundamentals are very strong, earning approval from both my Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett-based Guru Strategies -- computer models that are each based on the approach of a different investing great.

"Because of its moderate 18.14% long-term growth rate and huge annual sales of $28.7 billion, General Dynamics is considered a 'stalwart' by my Lynch strategy, the type of large, steady firm that Lynch found offered protection during downturns or recessions.

"Two big reasons my Lynch model is high on this stalwart: its yield-adjusted P/E/Growth ratio of 0.75, which signals that the stock is a bargain right now, and its 18.79% debt/equity ratio, a sign that GD has the conservative financing Lynch liked to see."

My Buffett-based model, meanwhile, likes General Dynamics' consistency. Over the past decade, its EPS have declined just once, rising from $1.46 to $5.10 in that time.

"The company's annual return on equity -- a figure Buffett used to find firms with the 'durable competitive advantage' he famously prizes -- has been at least 16.4% every year.

"GD has also retained $22.30 in per-share earnings in the past decade while increasing EPS by $3.64, showing it can earn investors a 16.3% return on the earnings it keeps. That's a sign of the strong management Buffett is also known to look for."

Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

This post is part of a series in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked financial experts to name their top stock pick if McCain or if Obama wins the election.

Which stocks would benefit from a victory by either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama? To help investors sort through the sectors and stocks best positioned to benefit in a post-election environment, we posed this question to some of the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

Importantly, this is not a partisan report; each participating advisor has provided a favorite stock for both candidates, focused not on political preferences but unbiased stock analysis. Below we feature those stocks and ETFs that the advisors believe will be the winners depending on which candidate prevails.

McCain Stocks:

Roger Conrad - Comcast (NYSE: CCW)
Gregg Early - Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT)
Elliott Gue - Paladin Resources (Toronto: PDN)
Doug Fabian - Market Vectors Nuclear Energy (NYSE: NLR)
Vivian Lewis - Barclays (NYSE: BCS)
Bill Martin - CGG Veritas (NYSE: CGV)'
Yiannis Mostrous - Lonking Holdings (OTC: CIMHF)
Carla Pasternak - Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: EVT)
Nate Pile - SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD)
John Reese - General Dynamics (NYSE: GD)
Nathan Slaughter - USEC (NYSE: USU)
Paul Tracy - Shaw Group (NYSE: SGR)
Kelley Wright - CenturyTel (NYSE: CTL)
Tom Vass - Molex (NASDAQ: MOLX)
Martin Hutchinson - Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG)

Obama Stocks:

Roger Conrad - SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR)
Gregg Early - AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV)
Elliott Gue - SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR)
Doug Fabian - Industrial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLI)
Vivian Lewis - Cosan (NYSE: CZZ)
Bill Martin - Geron (NASDAQ: GERN)
Yiannis Mostrous - Dr. Reddy's (NYSE: RDY)
Carla Pasternak - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP)
Nate Pile - Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)
John Reese - American Eagle (NYSE: AEO)
Nathan Slaughter - Fluor (NYSE: FLR)
Paul Tracy - Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy (NYSE: GEX)
Kelley Wright - Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH)
Tom Vass - Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR)
Martin Hutchinson - Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR)

If John McCain wants my vote he must dump Sarah Palin and fast. Judging by the latest polls showing Barack Obama moving ahead and gaining traction, I'm not the only one that feels this way. The outcome of the election is key to investors worried about a range of issues including the $700 billion federal bailout of Wall Street.

Obama may lack the experience I would hope to see in a presidential candidate but to quote a friend and fellow McCain supporter "Sarah Palin is an idiot and the only way she should be allowed in the White House is if she buys a tour ticket." This is not a unique sentiment given the Sarah Palin must go stance taken by conservative columnist Kathleen Parker of the Los Angeles Times. She says her cringe reflex is being exhausted.

I do not like Obama's proposals on capital gains taxes, a windfall oil profits tax, new government programs and several other issues, but the idea of Palin being second-in-command is a joke. And speaking of jokes, if I have misjudged, and McCain and Palin win the election, then Oprah will be surpassed as the wealthiest female in the entertainment industry. The new titan will be 30 Rock and former Saturday Night Live star Tina Fey who will be racking up fat paychecks based on the never ending material supplied by Palin.

U.S. stock futures were lower Tuesday morning, indicating stocks would likely start the same. Investors' concerns about the financial sector dampened sentiment, but oil prices continued to decline and could offset some of the negative mood. Still, housing and inflation data are on tap before the market opens today. And of course earnings with The Home Depot already beating investors' expectations this morning but with Staples issuing a warning.

A day after smaller Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) reported a profit drop, The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) followed suit, reporting a 24% profit decline for the second quarter. It held onto its earnings outlook as second-quarter net fell 24% to $1.2 billion, or 71 cents per share. Sales declined 5.4% to $21 billion. Analysts had projected earnings per share of 61 cents on revenue of $20.58 billion. Home Depot shares rose 2% in premarket trading.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: BMC Software, Smart Modular and Entropic Comm were today's noteworthy initiations:

• Stanford initiated BMC Software (NYSE: BMC) with a Buy rating and $45 target. The firm highlights the company's broad product portfolio and configuration management database leadership and thinks margin expansion should continue.
  
• ThinkPanmure assumed Smart Modular (NASDAQ: SMOD) with an Accumulate rating and $5.50 target. The firm expects better DRAM pricing but expects SMOD to experience some headwinds with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) losing share in the server market.
  
• Broadpoint expects Entropic Comm (NASDAQ: ENTR) to benefit from the adoption of applications that allow video through numerous devices, especially high definition and data content. Shares were started with a Buy rating and $6 target.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Banc of America initiated General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) with Buy ratings and targets of $100, $120 and $80, respectively.
  
• Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) was initiated with a Buy rating and $150 target at UBS.
  
• Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI) was assumed with a Buy rating at Merrill Lynch.

For the first time Monday I heard John McCain comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter. I had heard this before in other arenas, but not from McCain. I guess that despite these two presidential candidates pledging to the American people to bring change and resist politics as usual, they are both, as usual as one could get.

Obama is being shaped by the pressures of running for office and to believe otherwise is delusional. I suppose one has to have hope but the effects of the campaign are becoming clear. Obama has been painting McCain as an extension of Bush, which is nonsense, and now in a typical tit-for-tat response, McCain is filling the air with Carter references.

Both McCain and Obama are wrong in their assessments of their opponents and they are becoming commoners to resort to the bottom of the barrel campaign techniques used in every campaign for most of our nation's proud history. Obama gave up the high ground too easily and McCain has decided he can sling mud with the best of them.

Ultralife Batteries (NASDAQ: ULBI) provides a range of non-rechargeable and rechargeable batteries, charging systems and communications accessories for use in military, industrial and consumer portable electronics products. The company's non-rechargeable lithium batteries are used to power such diverse devices as radios, emergency radio beacons, search and rescue transponders, portable medical devices and smoke alarms. Its lithium polymer and lithium ion rechargeable batteries are used in such portable devices as laptop computers and cell phones. The US Department of Defense accounts for about twenty percent of Ultralife's sales. Major commercial customers include General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), General Motors (NYSE: GM) and RadioShack (NYSE: RSH).

The company pleased investors last week, when it issued upside guidance for the current quarter and year. Management sees Q2 revenues of more than $75 million ($60.43M consensus) and FY08 revenues of at least $250 million ($240.27 million consensus). The CEO said the better performance was attributable to "strong shipments to date, strong backlog in most businesses and requests from customers for accelerated deliveries against their orders."

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Merger talks between UAL Corporation's (NASDAQ: UAUA) United Airlines and US Airways Group Inc (NYSE: LCC) have been put off for now, the Wall Street Journal reported. United is reportedly close to an alliance with Continental Airlines Inc (NYSE: CAL).
• Harris Corporation (NYSE: HRS) is for sale and the company has begun to hear from interested parties, the Wall Street Journal also reported. Harris is looking for $75 to $80 per share. Speculation about the bidders includes General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD) and Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC).

OTHER PAPERS:

• The Charleston Gazette reported that Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) has decided not to build its Eastern Division headquarters in Charleston, West Virginia in the wake of a West Virginia Supreme Court ruling on May 22.

WEB SITES:

• AppleInsider reported that Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) is expected to announce a back-to-school deal soon that will encourage students to buy new Macs by offering some of the largest incentives in the history of the company.