ValuePlays

Here are the picks for Monday

Macke likes Foot Locker (FL), $21.67 and Nike (NKE), %52.95.

Seymour BP (BP), $69.76.

Finerman Home Depot (HD), $39.36

Guy Adami says the market looks terrible and doesn’t have a trade.

The results of Friday’s recommendations:

Bolling- USEC Inc, (USU) $22.02
Close $21.67 = Loss $.35

Adami- Honeywell (HON) $56.38 Close $55.68 = Loss $.70

Najarian- Bristol Myers (BMY) $32.02 Close $31.40 = Loss $.62

Macke- Hasbro (HAS) $31.63 Close $31.30 = Loss $.33

Now, the market was down over 180 points so there were not many winners out there Friday, but, we need to track the good days and the bad.

Records:

Since my tracking began (1-1 means one up day and one down day)

Adami= 0-3
Bolling= 1-2
Najarian= 1-2
Macke= 1-2

Here are the payout boosts for last week

Sun Hydraulics (SNHY)= 35%

Center Financial Corp. (CLFC)= 25%

Ameron (AMN)= 25%

Winnebago Enterprises (WGO)= 20%

Bank of South Carolina (BKSC)= 14.3%

UPGRADES:

Darden Restaurants (DRI)= Buy

Newfield Exploration (NFX)= Buy

Agrium (AGU)= Buy

Terra Industries (TRA)= Buy

AES Corp (AES)= Buy

Kraft(KFT)= Neutral

DOWNGRADES:

Talbots (TLB)= Sell

Pier 1 (PIR)= Underperform

Southern Co (SO)= Underweight

Abercrombie (ANF)= Equal-weight

Canadian National Rail (CNI)= Sector Perform

Here are some new 52 week lows from the NYSE

Wachovia (WB)= $51.84

Sanofi Aventis (SNY)= $40.37

Pulte Homes (PHM)= $23.80

McClatchy Newspapers (MNI)= $25.07

Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV)= $18.20

Public Storage (PSAA)= $25.65

Leggett $ Platt (LEG)= $21.60

Gulf Power (GUI)= $22.71

Journal Register (JRC)= $4.67

The much awaited verdict is in in the lead paint case of The City of Milwaukee vs NL Industries (NL).

The jury said that lead paint in and of itself was a public nuisance BUT, NL was NOT responsible for the problems it is causing. This makes 4 victories now in the last two weeks for lead paint defendants.

On Questions two and three – Did NL Industries intentionally and unreasonably engage in conduct that was a cause of the public nuisance and Did NL Industries negligently engage in conduct that was a cause of the public nuisance – the jury voted NO.

Visit Jane Genova’s Law and More for interviews and updates.

ADM, already producing biodiesel in Brazil now wants to enter the ethanol market.

In an interview, ADM’s (ADM) senior vice president of strategy, Steve Mills,said the company hasn’t ruled out a purchase of Brazil’s largest ethanol producer, Cosan SA, in which ADM owns a small stake. A Cosan spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr. Mills wouldn’t say how much money ADM is willing to invest in Brazilian ethanol, and it isn’t clear how soon they will move but based on recent history, when ADM finally talks about something, action soon follows. Mills said sugar-cane ethanol is now “a key component” of ADM’s immediate strategy. “We’re devoting a lot of time and energy to this area. We’re not talking about something 10 years down the road. It’s on the front burner,” he said.

Brazil is among the world’s lowest-cost producers of ethanol, at a cost of about 90 cents a gallon, roughly two-thirds that of corn ethanol, according to the Institute for Studies of Commerce and International Negotiations, a think tank in Sao Paulo. This is very interesting as it means corn based ethanol is made at a cost of about $1.20 a gallon. This really does squash the thought that ethanol is becoming unprofitable. It does mean that ADM will be able to make it 30% cheaper in Brazil toi export both to the US and the rest of the world.

ADM will have enough flexibility to sell it’s Brazilian production. They can funnel Brazilian ethanol through Caribbean countries (like Bunge (BG) and Cargil plan to do) who can export a limited amount to the U.S. duty-free and will also look to overseas markets, which are growing rapidly. “What ADM really understands is the global nature of green fuels,” said Dan Basse, president of AgResource Co., a Chicago commodity-advisory firm.

Coming off the heal of the hire of former DOE Head Todd Werpy and this weeks announced hire of Michael Pacheco, who served as the director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) National Bioenergy Center since 2003, ADM is gearing up for something big. Pacheco will lead ADM in the development of food and fuel processing technologies. At NREL, Pacheco was instrumental in the completion of the “Billion-Ton Report,” which confirmed the ability of U.S. biomass resources to meet the nation’s transportation fuel needs.

It looks like my biggest complaint about my RIMM (RIMM) Blackberry has been solved

Simply go to the site Empower from your Blackberry and download the beta version of the software. It takes 30 seconds. You can also sign up for free updates as they come out. I have downloaded it and it does work. For sites that you have set to send you text emails, you’ll need to change that the HTML to get the full functionality of the service.

The best part? It is FREE

Here are today’s picks from Bolling, Macke, Najarian and Adami

Picks For Today:

Bolling- USEC Inc, (USEC) $22.02

Adami- Honeywell (HON) $56.38

Najarian- Bristol Myers (BMY) $32.02

Macke- Hasbro (HAS) $31.63

Yesterday’s picks and the results:

Macke-Columbia Sportswear (COLM) $68.02 = $68.16 + $.14

Najarian- Terra Industries (TRA) $22.40 = $23.22 + $.82

Adami- “Short” Dow 30 Proshares ETF (DOG) $59.02 = $58.77 LOSS $.25

Bolling- NYMEX Holdings (NMX) $137 = $137.09 + $ .09

Looks like yesterday’s winner was Najarian and the sole loser was Adami.

Records:

Since my tracking began (1-1 means one up day and one down day)

Adami= 0-2
Bolling= 1-1
Najarian= 1-1
Macke= 1-1

The hits just keep on coming as the Ohio Supreme Court ruled municipalities cannot sue lead paint manufacturers unless they can prove “whose paint” is causing the “public nuisance”. For manufacturers like Sherwin Williams (SHW), NL Indusrtries (NL), DuPont (DD) and Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.A)Benjamin Moore, this ruling has now set the legal hurdle plaintiffs must cross and since the scientific community cannot “beyond all doubt” prove who manufactured the paint, this litigation is in it’s final hours.

From Law and More:

Another major blow for Motley Rice and other plaintiff firms suing Former Lead Paint Inc. – the Ohio Supreme Court on June 20th, ruled that product identification was necessary. Like the Missouri Supreme Court in the lead paint public nuisance St. Louis decision, the OH Supreme Court rejected a claim of market-share liabiity by the plaintiffs in Jackson v Glidden. The trial court had refused to allow the plaintiffs to sue former producers of lead pigment or their successors without identifying who made the paint. This ruling, of course, is in direct conflict with the jury instructions issued by Rhode Island Superior Judge Michael Silverstein in RI Lead Paint Trial II.

Former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell, who is spokesperson for the defendants, commented, “For nearly two decades of litigation, plaintiffs have moved from legal theory to legal theory, and venue to venue, in an attempt to place the responsibility for poorly maintained properties on the former manufacturers of lead paint. The market share theory is an attempt to evade the most basic requirements of a product liability suit – that the palintiffs show who made the product that allegedly caused harm.”

Motley Rice is a resourceful opponent. It will be fascinating to observe and deconstruct how it re-goups and re-positions itself in the media after three consecutive state supreme court losses in New Jersey, MO and now OH. We lead-paint watchers are still waiting for the ruling from the OH Supreme Court on SS 117 which would prohibit the state’s public nuisance law from being applied in product liability matters.

Looking for another way to play the commodity boom? With volatility in commodities increasing, users and producers of products that use them are looking for a way to manage costs.

Enter FCStone (FCSX) . Stone provide risk management consulting services to commodity wholesalers, end users, producers and offer customers clearing and execution services on all major domestic and international futures exchanges. Essentially, they enable companies to hedge against commodity price fluctuations and enhance their margins. Customers range from ethanol producers to sellers of heating oil but currently most of its customers are in agricultural grain business and they do business in the U.S., Canada, China, Brazil and Ireland

With the increase in commodity volatility, clients are entering into more transactions with FCStone, which went public March 16. In the second quarter, earnings climbed 78% to 41 cents a share and revenue rose 50% to $403.5 million. In 2006, earning more than doubled 2005’s.

How does it work?

Say a company produces ethanol and wants to hedge against the price fluctuations in corn (currently the fastest growing segment). No,w these will be one of the hundreds the small local producers as the big ones, like ADM (ADM), The Andersons (ANDE) and Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) will have in house operations.

“If it’s a natural-gas-fired ethanol plant, we’d look to lock in a processing margin,” said FCStone’s treasurer Bill Dunaway. “We would enter into a financial derivative contract to lock in the price they’ll pay for corn in the future and lock in the price of natural gas they’ll need to purchase in the future to run the plant.”

FCStone would also put in place a financial derivative to hedge the price of the ethanol that will be produced by the plant in the future. In so doing, it would lock in the price of the “inputs and the output, therefore securing a processing margin,” he added.

What to expect?

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect earnings for the 2007 fiscal year, ended in August, to rise 77% to $1.59 from the prior year, then 11% in 2008. By now means is this a value stock. But, for a momentum play, they are in a great market at the right time for it’s business. Also, if you expect consolidation in the Ag business, a fast grower like this could get swallowed up.

At these prices it is more of a momentum play than a ValuePlay, but, that does not mean you cannot make money with it.

So, it all starts tomorrow as the PE King, Blackstone begins trading

It will trade under the symbol BX and priced at the top end of the range at $31 a share. If you believe in the “greater fool” theory then this would be an indication that these firm are at the top and the people in the know are cashing in. This is especially relevant when you consider that KKR, probably the most well known to the gneral public of the bunch hired Citi (C) and Morgan Stanley (MS) to consider a possibly IPO also.

If there was a huge upside to these folks I do not think they would be cashing out and subjecting themselves to all the increased scrutiny a public company goes through.

I will stay away…