Subject: Chicago Sun Times placement
From: "Merilee:::Kern Communications" <[email-masked]>
To: "Brent Wilsey" <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:10:41 -0800

http://www.suntimes.com/business/roeder/1305638,CST-FIN-curious30.article

Best deals aren't at the malls 
Comments 

November 30, 2008 

BY DAVID ROEDER Sun-Times Columnist
Pity the people who stormed the malls at the crack of dawn Friday. The discounts were alluring, but there are better deals to be had elsewhere, especially if you stay home and log on to a brokerage account. You could buy stock as a gift for the kids, and you don't have to get up at 5 a.m. for the privilege.

Some of the best stock-pickers I know are seeing terrific deals in blue chips. Independent research firm Morningstar, for example, has culled its analysts' recommendations and created a list of prospects for what it calls, aptly, the Ultimate Stock-Picker's Portfolio. Recent additions to that list include Wells Fargo (WFC), ConocoPhillips (COP), WellPoint (WLP), Walt Disney (DIS), Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) and Costco Wholesale (COST).

A shopper totes a computer at a Wal-Mart in Oakland, Calif., on Friday. He could have done better, stock-pickers say. 
(AP) 
They join Morningstar favorites of long standing, such as Microsoft (MSFT) and General Electric (GE).

Many of the same names turn up on another favorite "tip sheet," the buy list maintained by Kovitz Investment Group. Kovitz likes close to 40 stocks, and recent additions to its list include Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Coca-Cola (KO) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

Beyond stocks, William Kovacic, president of Kovacic Financial Associates Inc. in Palos Heights, said he's been putting clients into two closed-end bonds funds. They are Calamos Convertible Opportunities and Income Fund (CHI) and Calamos Convertible and High Income Fund (CHY). Even with understandable dividend cuts this fall, these funds still are paying yields of about 15 percent. I'll take 15 percent on my money over a department store discount any day.

CAR TALK: Shares of General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor (F) have just had their best two-day trading period since 1980. The action came on the general consensus that Congress won't tell the bedrock American industry to drop dead, and that it probably will enact a bridge loan to carry the companies into the Obama administration. But the prospects for these two stocks still are troubling.

The auto business requires scale, focus and cost control. GM, Ford and privately held Chrysler LLC don't have it. Chrysler isn't even close and is probably a goner once the smoke clears. Buying GM is extremely risky; the bullish case is that it will downsize itself not only to get itself in shape for a government loan, but also to free cash to acquire the valuable pieces of Chrysler. 

Ford may be the best bet of all. It's large enough to meet the demands of scale yet isn't lumbering and clueless. There's real progress in Ford's vehicle quality and in cutting the time it needs to get new designs to market.

DOWN ON THE FARM: Farmers who locked in prices for their crops last summer look like geniuses. Commodity prices in the last five months are in a free-fall because the global economic slowdown probably will cut demand across the board for grains, meat and dairy products. At the Chicago Board of Trade, locals who saw agricultural futures touch record levels in July now wonder where the bottom is. Both corn and soybeans futures have fallen about 50 percent since that time.

Economists are parsing out the effects on the world at large. First up is the farmer, expected to see a substantial hit in income. That spreads to companies such as the fertilizer producers and farm implement maker Deere (DE). Last week, Deere reported an 18 percent drop in quarterly profit.

DE shares, however, rallied on the news. Contrarianism is at work here. Deere stock already has been discounted, having fallen 63 percent year-to-date. Jumping into this sector makes some sense, as commodity prices are liable to rise again and farmers will find their situation isn't so bad because their costs are falling, as anybody who visits a gas pump can attest. In time, price trends will boost consumer spending, even if the days of easy-credit profligacy are over.

COLUMN STUFFER: The company is gone and the Thanksgiving leftovers still lurk in the fridge, but if last week's feast put you in an investing mood, one of Curious Investor's favorite non-Chicago investment experts, Brent Wilsey, suggests you can start by considering the trappings of the holiday. Wilsey, president of Wilsey Asset Management, has "buy" ratings on the following companies that had a hand in Thanksgiving: ConAgra (CAG), Kraft Foods (KFT), Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), Hormel Foods (HRL) and Constellation Brands (STZ).

CLOSING QUOTE: "No one can escape the gravity of what's going on in the global economy. It's too powerful, but we're approaching the point where the worst is fully in the stocks." -- Matthew Kaufler, money manager, Clover Capital Management, as told to Bloomberg News