Should you long or short auto stocks? In the wake of the deal between DaimlerChrysler and private equity firm Cerberus Capital, investors want advice -- and Dan Poole, assistant director of research at National City's private client group, and Scott Kays, president of Kays Financial Advisory, joined "Closing Bell" to share their views.

The short interest in Ford Motor and General Motors is 10% and 8%, respectively. Poole told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo this is "no surprise" to his colleagues. "For GM to work, you need to lower your fixed costs," he said. However, he maintained GM is "getting other things right," such as quality improvement. He concluded that GM and Ford are trading about where they should be -- and said "we really don't see much value in being long or short."

Poole's favorite: Honda Motor, which he praises as, relatively speaking, a "newcomer to North America," boosted by new, "profitable" dealers.

Kays agreed that Ford and GM stocks "won't go much lower," and predicted that they'll trend sideways "for a while." Pointing to rising health care costs and the "big albatross" of labor unions, he said shares in the Detroit firms are "definitely cheap right now -- but they deserve to be cheap."

He predicted a "slow leak," with the manufacturers continuing to lose market share to Toyota Motor.