Today's Stock Picks: Steel, Discount Retailers, Tyson

CNBC asked the market pros for their best investment advice right now. Here's what some of them had to say.

Profits of Steel

It really is a great time domestically for steel demand.  One has to take in consideration we are short production capacity to meet our demand…We’ve tested certain demand levels in previous recessions, and we’ve analyzed that in 2008, and we certainly don’t see demand falling any lower than what was tested in previous recessions…so then again that makes a nice situation for the domestic producers, who are again operating at full capacity.”

Bob Richards, Longbow Research Analyst

Richards likes: U.S. Steel , AK Steel , Nucor , Steel Dynamics

Playing Defense

“We’ll get sluggish growth, but what I think we’ll definitely get, is sluggish credit growth…so that’s the reason for focusing either on defensive groups, like Wal-Mart , Costco …or, we think things like farm equipment, mining equipment, that are selling into customers that don’t need to borrow money to buy their products.  So our whole idea is avoid areas you need lots of credit growth to make it work.”

Douglas Cliggott, Dover Management

Cliggott also likes: Deere

Feeding Your Portfolio

“Investors should be thinking about going long Tyson, for instance, on a day like today…What you’re going to see is meat prices go substantially higher, and because chicken is the most efficient consumer of corn – it only takes two pounds of corn to make a pound of chicken, but it takes four pounds of corn to make a pound of pork -- then higher pork and beef prices are going to create a really nice umbrella for chicken, and that’s why you want to be long Tyson today.”

Timothy Ramey, D.A. Davidson & Co. Senior Research Analyst

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