div style="text-align: justify;"Goldman Sachs is upgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) /spanto Buy from Neutral and adding it to thebr /Americas Conviction Buy List. They recommend AKS for near-term to medium-term investors primarily due to its high sensitivity to steel prices. Its electrical steel segment should remain highly profitable and should get a boost from global stimulus packages, particularly in China. Firm's new 6- month P/E and EV/EBITDA based target price of $15 (increased from $9) implies the highest potential upside in their coverage of 34%. It should also benefit from lower iron ore prices next year.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Goldman notes they see steel prices at an inflection point /spanbr /They remain positive on the steel sector in the near-term owing to impressive supply discipline exhibited by the industry around the world which has helped prices to bottom at a significantly higher level than other commodities. Firm estimates that ...

MSN Money's Jim Jubak still sees stocks heading lower, but he has a href="http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/cheap-stocks-theyre-an-illusion.aspx"three rules/a to help investors find the best stocks in a beat up market.br /br /The first rule on his list was br /br /blockquotestrongLook for companies with flexible production and low fixed costs./strong/blockquote br /He gave Nucor (strongNUE/strong) as an example, of it he said br /br /blockquoteThe common wisdom is that demand for steel drops in a recession as demand from car and appliance makers tanks. And that common wisdom is absolutely correct. Nucor, in its Oct. 16 conference call with investors and Wall Street analysts, reported it had shipped 13% less steel in the third quarter than in the second quarter of 2008. The outlook for the fourth quarter and for 2009 is so murky, the company said, that it won't venture even a guess at production levels or revenue for those periods./blockquotebr /a ...

Charlotte-based Nucor (NUE) is the largest in the U.S. for the production of structural steel, steel bars, steel joists, steel deck and cold finished bars. On October 16, Nucor reported third quarter 2008 results. In the reported quarter, diluted earnings per share were $2.31, an increase from $1.29 in the same quarter of the previous year. Nucor's consolidated net sales increased 75% to $7.45 billion, compared with $4.26 billion in the third quarter of 2007. Average sales price per ton increased 51% from the third quarter of 2007.Long-term steel contracts, constant cost reduction efforts, higher steel prices, lower interest rates, strong cash flow position and a dominant acquisition strategy inspire our optimism with respect to the stock's performance in the coming quarters. However, a slowdown in steel demand from the automobile sector and increased production in China are matters of concern. Rising ...

The analysts said they picked their list based on attributes like low leverage, dividend yield, high net income margins and high free cash yields. J.P. Morgan analysts also looked for companies that they believe will outperform in a weakening global economy. Those companies would be able to maintain pricing power, market dominance, and perform counter-cyclically.

Here’s their list, which can be tracked at:

http://trackthepros.com/stocks/category/1846

3M  Baxter International  Colgate  CA Inc. Devon Energy  General Mills  Gilead Sciences  Google  Hewlett-Packard  McDonald’s Corp  Merck and Co  Monsanto  Nucor  Philip Morris  Union Pacific  Visa

      

October 16, picks

CNBC Fast Money traders picks..track them at:

http://trackthepros.com/stocks/category/228

Adami:

GOOG - Google - Buy Gasoline - Buy IBM - IBM - Buy UTX - United Technologies - Buy NVS - Novartis - Buy - Final Trade

Finerman: OIH - Oil Service HLDRS - Buy - Final Trade part 1 USO - United States Oil Fund - Short - Final Trade part 2 NU - Nucor - Buy FCX - Freeport McMoRan - Buy DEO - Diageo - Buy MO - Altria - Buy BUD - Budweiser - Buy, “one of the biggest deals of all time”

Najarian: SCHW - Charles Schwab - Buy ABT - Abbott Labs - Buy C - Citigroup - Buy at $15 and sell an option SLB - Schlumberger - Keep an eye on it, it’s been beaten CHK - Chesapeake - Buy - Final Trade

Terranova: GIS - General Mills - Buy EOG - EOG Resources

...

Monday:Economic: NAEarnings: Fastenal (FAST), XL Cap (XL)Tuesday:Economic: NAEarnings: J&J (JNJ), Pepsi (PEP), Supervalu (SVU), WW Grainger (GWW), Altera (ALTR), CSX (CSX), Genentech (DNA), Intel (INTC), USANA (USNA)Wednesday:Economic: Weekly Crude,Earnings: BlackRock (BLK), C Schwab (SCHW), Coke (KO), Delta (DAL), JP Morgan (JPM), St Jude (STJ), Wells Fargo (WFC), Badger (BMI), eBay (EBAY), Novellus (NVLS), Landstar (LSTR), Steel Dynamics (STLD), Xilinx (XLNX)Thursday:Economic: Weekly Claims, Wholesale Invs (0.4%)Earnings: Bank of NY (BK), BB&T (BBT), Citigroup (C), CIT Group (CIT), Continental (CAL), Cypress (CY), Harley (HOG), Hershey (HSY), Illinois Tool (ITW), Merrill (MER), Nokia (NOK), Nucor (NUE), Parker Hannifin (PH), Sherwin W (SHW), Sonoco (SON), Southwest (LUV), Sunpower (SPWRA), United Tech (UTX), Cap One (COF), Gilead (GILD), Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Zions Banc (ZION)Friday:Economic:Earnings: Amcol (ACO), Comerica (CMA), Genuine Parts (GPC), Honeywell (HON), ...

Caxton AssociateseCaxton Associates Hedge Fund HoldingsThis post is being written as part of HedgeFundBlogger.com's Investment Securities Tool which analyzes the holdings of hedge fund managers.Up next in the macro hedge fund tracking series we have Caxton Associates, ran by Bruce Kovner. Taken from Wikipedia, Kovner's bio is as follows: "Kovner's first trade was for $3,000, borrowed against his MasterCard, in soybean futures contracts. Realizing growth to $40,000, he then watched the contract drop to $23,000 before selling. He later claimed that this first, nerve-racking trade taught him the importance of hedge fund risk management. In his eventual role as a trader under the legendary Michael Marcus at Commodities Corporation (now part of Goldman Sachs), ...

Maverick CapitalMaverick Capital Management Holdings AnalysisThis post is being written as part of HedgeFundBlogger.com's Investment Securities Tool which analyzes the holdings of hedge fund managers.Lee Ainslie started Maverick Capital back in 1993 with $38 million. Nowadays, the fund is worth $10 billion. Ainslie, like many of the other fund managers I've profiled, has a background rooted in learning from legendary great Julian Robertson at Tiger Management. So, due to the fact that these proteges learned from the best and have had great success running their own hedge funds, I continually try to find a reason not to follow these funds. And, needless to say I'm never successful. Some contacts over at Maverick have explained that their hedge fund strategy is straight up stock picking, both long and short. They made ...

Clarium Capital ManagementClarium Capital | Peter Thiel Holdings AnalysisThis post is being written as part of my Investment Securities Tool which analyzes the holdings of hedge fund managers.Clarium is a $6 billion global macro hedge fund run by Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal. Although they had a rough July (-6.8%), Clarium is still up over 45% year to date. Assets under management have recently ballooned to the highest amount in Clarium's history. It will be interesting to see how effective Clarium will be at deploying this new capital.Now, to the 13F. I actually hesitated even doing a 13F analysis on Clarium Capital simply because when I say they are a global macro fund, I really mean it. The 13F they filed with ...

Belatedly, the Fed and Treasury are drawing a line in the quicksand of moral hazard that has fuelled Wall Street's reckless mismanagement and overleveraged business model. This is now an insolvency crisis for the financial sector, not a liquidity one. An orderly bankruptcy process is the best outcome all around, particularly as it has forced Merrill Lynch into the fastest shotgun wedding since Bristol Palin, and AIG to urgently recapitalise. The new mantra in investment bank boardrooms will be 'Don't be a Dick (Fuld)' and in many ways risks are receding fast in this corner of the shadow financial system; they are in Donald Rumsfeld's immortal analysis 'known unknowns'. The hit will be to bondholders and the CDS market rather than counterparties and customers. The 'unknown unknowns' lie in the hedge fund industry, which has collectively suffered its worst trading period in ...