Stock Picks: Betting on Refiners, Innovators & More

It's been a wild ride for both the dollar and oil.  When it comes to stocks, here's what the experts have to say about what they like now:

Dialing Into Telecom

“Embarq is a rural phone company. They’re operating in a lot of smaller towns and rural areas in the country. It’s really just a cash-flow play and a dividend yield. Its dividend yield is north of six percent; I believe it’s 6.3 percent… A lot of these rural phone companies sold off last fall when the housing market concerns first happened and first started to surface. And, we upgraded them back in January, as we think we’re not seeing an impact necessarily in the housing market from these stocks and certainly not in the cash flows of their business.”

- Todd Rethemeier, Soleil Securities

Rethemeier Also Recommends: WindStream , MetroPcs

Refining Profits

“Our favorite names are actually in the refining sector, which right now have compressed margins. So we like Marathon [Oil] and we like ConocoPhillips . The market has recognized that refining margins have collapsed. In the face of higher food prices, refiners were unable to pass those prices increases. So profitability and prices have collapsed.”

- Benjamin Halliburton, Tradition Capital Management

Turning To Innovation

“I think you can get a lot of former fly highers at decent discounts from the 52-week highs.... Research In Motion I would put in the same bucket, even though Research In Motion isn’t slightly off its highs. It’s at its highs. I would put Apple in that category. I would also put in companies like Intuitive Surgical ; companies that through innovation can drive superior sales growth despite of the economy.”

- Doug MacKay, Broadleaf Partners

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