The firm chose companies in the following segments: Aerospace & Defense; Auto, Auto Parts and Auto Retailers; Coal & Precious Metals; Engineering & Construction; Construction Materials & Diversified Industrials; Oil & Gas; Services; and Shipping & Transportation Equipment. We included a street-consensus target from Thomson Reuters and put in firm data specific to these calls today.

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) was the top pick for Aerospace & Defense “given our updated commercial aircraft forecast coupled with our view that Boeing’s gross order book will be >1.0x in 2013/2014. Longer-term, given the cash flow dynamics with ramping production and improving 787 cost curve, a 50% move in Boeing shares is achievable before the peak of the cycle in 2015.” Boeing’s $120 price target at Stern Agee compares to a current price of $98.92 and compares to a consensus price target of $103.90. BE Aerospace (NASDAQ: BEAV) was also shown as a top pick after Boeing with big upside. BE Aero trades at $62.95 and Stern Agee’s $72 target compares to $69.17 from Wall Street.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) and TRW Automotive Holdings Corp. (NYSE: TRW) led in the Auto, Auto Parts and Auto Retailers. The firm said, “We believe all three companies are well positioned to benefit from the global demand trends, as well as the likelihood of company specific actions to enhance shareholder value.” Ford is the only one of these three with a dividend.

Consol Energy Inc. (NYSE: CNX) was Stern Agee’s Coal & Precious Metals top pick as the low-cost provider with a solid balance sheet. The firm said, “We note the solid potential of upside to Northern Appalachian thermal margins as scrubbed utilities and international power companies seek out high heat coals, with enhanced met coal margins once pricing recovers and added shale exploitation success. We believe the market will accelerate its appreciation of the asset value compiled at Consol, especially with an overcapitalized balance sheet.” Shares closed at $33.97 recently, way under the $60 target price from Stern Agee. That implies almost a double your money call, but we would caution that Wall Street’s consensus price target was $42.22 per share on last look.

Fluor Corp. (NYSE: FLR) was the top pick in Engineering & Construction and Stern Agee said, “We expect continued strong cash generation, balance sheet strength and margin expansion as the current cycle evolves. With the approval of the second U.S. LNG export facility last week, we believe these opportunities continue to become more tangible providing further catalysts for Fluor.” Stern Agee see Fluor going to $80 and Wall Street has a consensus of $75 on the stock versus $64.57 recently.

Martin Marietta Materials Inc. (NYSE: MLM) is the top pick for Construction Materials & Diversified Industrials as the number-two producer of construction aggregates with a strong balance sheet and significant operating leverage of over 60% to a volume recovery. The firm said, “For investors in housing-related stocks looking for what’s next, we think MLM is it.” At $110.91 now, the consensus target is actually under the current price at $110.67. Stern Agee has the street-high target of $128 for this stock.

Whiting Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: WLL) was the top exploration and production pick in Oil & Gas. Stern Agee said, “Given increasing activity in the Permian Basin and Niobrara this year, we see upside to 2013E production of 94.8 mboe/d. With a possible monetization of the mature Postle field and/or a joint venture in an emerging basin as 2013 catalysts, we believe shares remain attractively valued relative to our $62 price target.” Whiting’s current price is $46.54 against a consensus price target of $60.50 on the stock.

Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE: SPN) was said to remain as a top pick in the Services sector which should post strong earnings and cash flow growth in 2014-15. Stern Agee likes its improving U.S. land market and rising Gulf of Mexico activity coming with strong international growth initiatives. The price of $28.44 compares to a Stern Agee target of $34.00 and a consensus target price of $32.93.

The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. (NYSE: GBX) is Stern Agee’s top pick in Shipping & Transportation Equipment. The firm said. “We believe GBX is poised to benefit from continued strong order flow for tank cars, a re-acceleration in non-tank car backlog growth, and robust margin expansion over the next two years as more higher margin tank and automotive cars are delivered out of the backlog.” Shares trade at $24.45 and hit a new 52-week high of $24.45 today, and Stern Agee sees the stock going up to $28 versus a $26 consensus price target.

Eagle Materials Inc. (NYSE: EXP) was also given a positive reiterated Buy rating. Stern Agee said that the construction recovery remains on track, as does the company’s frac sand business. Both are expected to be strong drivers over the next few years. At about $77 now, Stern Agee has a target price of $85.00 and the consensus price target is $83.50.

As you can see, some of these picks are very aggressive while others are very much in-line with Wall Street consensus target price expectations.

The editors at Kelley Blue Book (KBB) have named their 10 best cars for American families based on criteria such as safety, roominess, comfort and value. That seems like a pretty good list to us, and KBB’s choices appear to strike a reasonable balance.

Click here to see the 10 best cars for the American family

It is worth pointing out that of the top 10 there is only one minivan, the Honda Odyssey. Minivans are declining in popularity among American families due to a combination of factors. Fuel economy for the minivans is lower than for smaller cars like the Honda Accord or small SUVs like the Honda CR-V. Minivan designs have not really kept pace with new small SUV designs either. As a result, minivan sales are falling. The Honda Odyssey, for example, sold more than 135,000 units in 2008, compared with around 126,000 in 2012.

KBB’s list includes a vehicle for nearly every purpose, from a bulky Chevrolet Suburban that costs more than $51,000 and gets combined city-highway fuel mileage of 17 miles per gallon (mpg) to a Honda Accord that costs less than half that amount and gets 27 mpg combined. The Accord sold nearly 332,000 units in the United States in 2012, compared with just over 48,000 Suburbans.

Another difference among the cars on KBB’s list is revealed in the five-year cost of ownership. A Suburban costs more than $63,000 to own over a five-year period, compared with a cost of around $35,000 for an Accord. The Accord’s resale value at the end of five years totals 43% of its sales price, where a Suburban retains 38% of its original value.

Which cars are selling best? The clear leader here is Volkswagen’s Passat, which has seen sales jump from about 30,000 in 2008 to about 117,000 in 2012. The Passat is also priced just barely higher than the lowest price Accord.

The top-ranked family car based on customer loyalty in the Edmunds ranking is the Toyota Avalon. Some 43% of Avalon owners who are trading in their cars for a new model plan to buy another Avalon. About 40% of Honda Odyssey owners plan to buy another Odyssey, and nearly 39% of Suburban owners plan to buy another Suburban. These numbers indicate that the cars’ owners believed that they received exactly what they anticipated when they bought the first version of the car. That is a pretty strong endorsement.

One note on the data that follows. KBB lists its 10 best cars by trim level, whereas Edmunds groups the cars more generally by model name. Many of the reviews referenced in the piece from groups like J.D. Power, Edmunds and Consumer Reports are for the most recent available period, and in some cases may be for the 2012 model.

USAToday said of SUVs tested by IIHS:

Five small crossovers flunk the new small overlap crash test, but not the 2014 Subaru Forester.

The Forester was the only one of 13 small crossover SUVs to earn an overall rating of good in the test, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says. The 2013 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport got an acceptable rating.

Rated marginal were the Nissan Rogue, Mazda CX-5, Honda CR-V, Jeep Wrangler and Volkswagen Tiguan.

Five small crossovers were rated poor included the Ford Escape, Jeep Patriot, Buick Encore, Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson.

Shares of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) are up fractionally in premarket trading to $14.71, in a 52-week range of $8.82 to $14.77. General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) shares also are fractionally fractionally in premarket trading, at $32.32 in a 52-week range of $18.72 to $32.44.

While we are saying that the Tesla rally is over, there has to be an admission that timing and illogical behavior can often prevail over common sense even if that may just be temporary. We have seen a serious concern on the chart, the short sellers have likely been squeezed out, and a key analyst jettisoned the stock $20 ago. What you should not consider a peak is the move toward electric, hybrid, and better fuel-efficient vehicles.

The stock had a huge gap-up at $94.39 this morning after earnings, with a very early morning peak of $97.12. A huge volume sell-off down to $85 and with shares in the red is representative of what cocktail market technicians would call a “gap and crap” pattern.

When this happens at a record share price and on monstrous trading volume (8+ times volume is that), you are often seeing a top. Keep in mind that Tesla was under $60 just on May 8, then on May 9 you had close to a $14 rally, followed by another $7 rally, followed by another $11 rally. Another $9 higher just proved to be the breaking point.

Another issue is Tesla’s short interest. This has been in decline in the last three twice-monthly reports, but the NASDAQ short interest tables shows that Tesla still had 27.5 million shares short as of the April 30 settlement date and Tesla’s stock was around $50 in the days leading up to the end of April.

Goldman Sachs recently downgraded Tesla to Neutral from Buy after the valuation reached a highly elevated level. That was on May 9 on the day that Tesla was gapping up to $70. At $85 Tesla’s market cap is still about $9.7 billion, while Thomson Reuters has estimates on sales of $1.93 billion in 2013 and $2.54 billion for 2014.

There is a concern in options trading. Call options trading volume is still outpacing put option volume. That may be one caveat out there, unless new buyers are selling contracts to hedge their long or short positions.

We do not have other electric car players to value Tesla against. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) is supposed to be the safest car company in America. Ford’s market cap is $56 billion and sales projections from Thomson Reuters are $136 billion in 2013 and almost $143 billion in 2014. General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) has a market value of over $43 billion and Thomson Reuters has sales estimates of $155 billion for 2013 and $165 billion for 2014.

For trades at about 0.4-times a 2013-14 blended sales, versus about 0.27-times 2013-14 blended sales for GM. Tesla trades at about 5-times 2013 sales and about 4-times 2014 sales. The forward P/E ratios are too out of proportion to even bother discussing, but the forward multiples for 2014 earnings are roughly 78 for Tesla, 8.5 for Ford, and about 7.25 for GM.

Have you seen the all-time high in Tesla shares? Very possibly, no. Tesla is positioning itself to be the de facto electric car leader in America (and maybe beyond) and ultimately that can drive much much higher raw dollars in valuation. We have just seen too many valuations get stretched to the point that they did not make sense and we have to wonder what year in the future that investors are buying Tesla shares up for up until today.

There is a major bull market underpinning the speculative favorites and that supports Tesla. Still, if Goldman Sachs couldn’t stomach the valuation almost $20 lower and the blow off top that we saw today are of any use, Tesla still has much more risk than reward for investors who do not like the moral hazards of chasing stock prices endlessly higher each day.

The largest wireless carriers continue to be locked in a war over a market saturated by subscribers. Few athletes or celebrities have the drawing power and command the TV time that Woods does. AT&T was right to sponsor him. Verizon Wireless would be wise to pick up Woods for the same reasons AT&T was. As 4G and new smartphones from Samsung and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) revolutionize the market, Verizon needs more marketing leverage.

Accenture competes with several other global consulting firms for corporate and government customers. It invested millions of dollars in ad campaigns centered around Woods. Accenture’s major competitor — PcW — is already a large PGA tour sponsor. As a matter of fact, it was the title sponsor of the Players Championship, which Woods just won. Its commitment to the sport is already in place. Woods is the logical face of PcW as its extends it participation in the sport.

Coca-Cola Co.’s (NYSE: KO) Powerade is Gatorade’s primary competitor. All of its endorsement deals are with major athletes, including LeBron James and Derrick Rose. Given the prices these athletes command for their associations with Powerade, the drink already invests tens of millions of dollars in endorsements. Woods would be an ideal athlete to round out its stable, based on the fact that he dominates his sport the way that James does.

General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) Buick division dropped Woods before the scandal. Its fortunes crumbled ahead of it entering Chapter 11. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and Chrysler compete with Buick. Either one of them could turn to Woods to build its brand. Chrysler in particular relies on the U.S. market, because it has little presence overseas.

Woods had what was once estimated to be several hundred million dollars in sponsors. He has won seven of his most recent 21 PGA starts, and four so far this year. During most tournaments, he is on television for several hours — just the kind of exposure major sponsors crave.

Sales of America’s best-selling pickup, the Ford F-Series increased 24 percent, with 59,030 pickups sold. This represents F-Series best April sales results since 2006. It also is the 21st straight monthly sales increase for F-Series — with sales up 19 percent year to date.

USA Today reported on the Ford jobs added:

Spurred by a booming market for fullsize pickups, Ford Motor says it will add a third crew of 900 workers at the suburban Kansas City factory that builds F-150 pickups.

“Fullsize truck sales are growing three times as fast as the industry,” says Joe Hinrichs, Ford Motor executive vice president and president of The Americas. “There’s strong (economic) growth and housing starts are up.”

And:

Ford also confirmed it will begin production late this year of its Transit fullsize van at the Kansas City assembly plant, located at Claycomo, Mo. That will add more than 1,000 jobs there.

After years of huge layoffs, this news is a modest victory for car workers.

The Markit Eurozone Manufacturing PMI report did not have a single good thing in it. Not only did the region’s activity contract, it also contracted in most of the eurozone’s largest nations by gross domestic product. Along with a string of data about financial trouble, high unemployment, falling wages and labor unrest, the report will used by many proponents of austerity to prove their case. Europe needs stimulus to be lifted out of what could be the second deep recession in five years.

The Markit PMI report said:

Eurozone manufacturing started the second quarter of 2013 on a weak footing, with conditions in the sector deteriorating at the sharpest pace in the year-to-date.

At 46.7 in April, down slightly from 46.8 in March, the seasonally adjusted Markit Final Eurozone Manufacturing PMI signalled contraction for the twenty-first successive month — despite edging up from the earlier flash estimate of 46.5.

All of the national PMI indices signalled contraction in April. Rates of decline accelerated in Germany, Ireland and Austria, but eased in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Greece. The four worst performing nations nonetheless remained France, Italy, Greece and Spain

The fact that France could be mentioned in the same sentence as Greece and Spain is the most unsettling of all the data.

Lenovo-IBM Talks End

Chinese computer firm Lenovo will not buy the troubled server division of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM). The unit is considered one of IBM’s worst performers. The U.S. firm would have been well rid of it. As usual with most corporate sales negotiations, the breaking point of the talks was price. CNN Money reports on the Lenovo-IBM talks:

News of the negotiations surfaced last month in various publications and were confirmed by Fortune. Bloomberg put the value of the potential deal, which would cover IBM’s sale of its so-called x86 server business, at between $2.5 billion and $4.5 billion. Others suggested IBM was seeking as much as $6 billion. Lenovo is said to have balked at the price tag for the business, which generates close to $5 billion in sales, or about a third of IBM’s overall server revenue, according to estimates.

Ford Pickup Sales

Sales of the Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) F-150 flagship pickup have surged so strongly that the U.S. car company will add workers to build more of them. Analysts have noted that much of the increase of sales in the American market this year is due to light trucks, SUVs and pickups. Most get poor gas mileage, so the trend is hard to explain. When Ford reported April sales, it noted:

Sales of America’s best-selling pickup, the Ford F-Series increased 24 percent, with 59,030 pickups sold. This represents F-Series best April sales results since 2006. It also is the 21st straight monthly sales increase for F-Series — with sales up 19 percent year to date.

USA Today reported on the Ford jobs added:

Spurred by a booming market for fullsize pickups, Ford Motor says it will add a third crew of 900 workers at the suburban Kansas City factory that builds F-150 pickups.

“Fullsize truck sales are growing three times as fast as the industry,” says Joe Hinrichs, Ford Motor executive vice president and president of The Americas. “There’s strong (economic) growth and housing starts are up.”

And:

Ford also confirmed it will begin production late this year of its Transit fullsize van at the Kansas City assembly plant, located at Claycomo, Mo. That will add more than 1,000 jobs there.

After years of huge layoffs, this news is a modest victory for car workers.

According to information released by car data site Edmunds.com, the brand of vehicle you buy may determine how long you will keep your vehicle — whether you will own it for less than four years or more than seven. The average age of a Buick traded in during 2012 was 7.47 years. The average Smart vehicle traded in during 2012 was just 3.09 years. Based on the average trade-in age of the major car makes sold in the United States, these are the cars Americans are most likely to trade in.

Click here to see the seven cars most likely to be dumped

Many of the makes on this list represent only a small part of the U.S. auto market. Five of the seven car brands each had 0.5% of U.S. market share in 2012 or less. Smart, which had the lowest average trade-in age, barely sold 10,000 units last year. By comparison, Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) had 15 separate models that each sold more than 25,000 units. The Ford F-150 sold 434,000 units.

One factor that may contribute to people turning in these cars sooner than most is dependability. Based on the 2013 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, which measures the number of reported problems new owners have with their cars, five of the car brands had more reported problems per 100 vehicles than the industry average. Mini and Smart were worst and third worst, respectively, among the 34 makes surveyed by J.D. Power.

While dependability appears to be a factor for the brands with shorter trade-in timelines, the actual age of the brands may also be a factor. Cars with older average trade-ins, such as Buick, Lincoln and Chrysler, have had a major presence in the U.S. for decades. Companies with shorter trade-in times, such as Smart and Scion, are relatively new in the United States. One factor that likely leads to Smart cars having a lower average trade-in age is that most of the Smart cars in the country are less than five years old.

Two cars that were among the most likely to be returned are owned by drivers that can afford to get the newest model. While Porsche and Land Rover were owned for less than five years on average, both cars have among the highest loyalty ratings; drivers are much more likely to buy another Porsche or Land Rover than most other cars.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed Edmunds.com data on the average trade-in time on the 32 largest U.S. vehicle makes in 2012 to identify the car brands that are turned in in less than five years. Edmunds.com provided us with U.S. sales and market share, as well as the average time on lot for 2012. Edmunds.com also provided brand loyalty data, which represents the percentage of drivers trading in a car who planned on buying the same make or model they owned. For each of these models, we also reviewed J.D. Power’s Initial Quality and Dependability study, which measures the number of complaints by make per 100 vehicles both for new owners and those who have owned the vehicle for three years.

These are seven cars most likely to be sold, returned, or, to put it another way, dumped.

Glencore continues to push to buy Xstrata. (Reuters)

Facebook Inc.’s (NASDAQ: FB) mobile business shoots up in the first quarter. (Reuters)

Industrial giant Siemens A.G. (NYSE: SI) lowers forecasts based on a weakening economy. (Reuters)

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS-A) CEO Peter Voser to retire next year. (WSJ)

The Federal Reserve will continue its $85 billion a month bond buying, encouraged in part by low global inflation. (WSJ)

Federal regulators want banks to hold higher levels of capital to guard against unexpected, negative events. (WSJ)

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) says it will increase production of its flagship F-150. (WSJ)

Talks about Lenovo buying the International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) server group end. (WSJ)

The home price increase trend in China picks up. (WSJ)

Management of Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube say audience has increased to one billion unique users who watch six billion hours of video a month. (WSJ)

The Defense Department will give security approvals to some Samsung devices and the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone and iPad. (WSJ)

CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) profits are helped by Super Bowl advertising. (WSJ)

Eastman Kodak files to leave bankruptcy. (WSJ)

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) hopes to get approval of the 777 for longer range service. (NYT)

Research firm IDC reports tablet sales surged in the first quarter, while PC sales dropped, and the market share of Apple’s iPad fell. (FT)

BMW’s results beat expectations. (Bloomberg)

During BMW’s first quarter:

Group revenues totalled € 17,546 million (2012: € 18,293 million; -4.1%).

And:

Group net profit came in at € 1,312 million (2012: € 1,352 million; -3.0%). The total number of BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brand vehicles delivered to customers worldwide in the first three months of 2013 rose by 5.3% to 448,200 units (2012: 425,528 units).

While some observers might consider the financial drops to be evidence the company has trouble, the fact that BMW’s home market is Europe should set aside such worries, particularly because it did not fail there. In context, that means BMW did not falter in Europe the way that firms like Volkswagen, General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) have.

The BMW Group improved its position in practically all regions of the world during the first quarter. Sales volume increases in Europe (207,243 units; +3.1%), the Americas (96,488 units; +5.0%) and Asia (130,219 units; +9.5%) all contributed to evenly balanced growth for the BMW Group.

The U.S. market has surged in the first quarter, and BMW’s Europe sales improvement nearly match those in the American market.

There could be several explanations for the BMW results. Among them are that wealthy buyers have not had income drops during the recession like those of the middle or lower classes. Another is that BMW has remarkable brand loyalty. There is evidence of this in brand valuation studies. The leader of this sort of research — BrandZ — puts BMW’s brand value at $26.4 billion. That is well above the brand value of the world’s number two car company, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM). Compared to the Japanese company, BMW is a niche manufacturer. And not a single U.S. car brand is in the BrandZ top 100 global brands.

Brand loyalty will always remain a mystery. Does the public’s positive impression of a brand come before strong sales, or do strong sales come before strong brand valuation? Many BMW shareholders do not care. Their company has unprecedented advantages.