Five-Star Stocks In Ill-Starred Sectors

Retail, financials and homebuilding.  Sectors to avoid at all costs?  Not according to Bob Turner, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Turner Investment Partners.

His five-star Turner Core Growth Fund is up an average of 15.23 percent per year over the last five years.

And on a day when the upscale department store chain Nordstrom

announced same-store sales declined 5.8 percent in February, Turner said he likes the company's stock.

"We think it's time to invest in some of the early-cycle stocks," he told CNBC.  "You've got to go with high quality; Nordstrom's is high quality."

Also on his list, Merrill Lynch .

"Merrill Lynch is certainly one that's controversial now," he admitted.  "We like the management change; we like the fact that they've done a lot of write-offs; they've got a great retail network; their interest in both Blackstone and Bloomberg is good as well."

Another of Turner's "early-cycle" stock picks is NVR , a middle-market homebuilder.

"First of all, their geography's good; they're around D.C. and Baltimore; the government doesn't necessarily lay people off in an economic slowdown, and they've got a ready group of buyers there," he said. "It's extremely well managed; the company's generating significant cash flow; they bought back shares; there's nice insider buying in the company right now."

© 2008 CNBC.com