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This post is part of a series in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked financial experts to name their top stock pick if McCain or if Obama wins the election.

"Should Obama win the election, we would look towards select sub-sectors of health care; one stock we would expect to benefit is health supply distributor, Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH)," explains Kelley Wright, editor of the blue chip Investment Quality Trends.

"A President Obama will have to make good on his promise to deliver better health care. While this could create havoc for the pharmaceutical producers, drug therapies and medical supplies will have to be delivered.

"The 800lb. gorilla in the supply and distribution space is Cardinal Health. Cardinal is a global company whose distribution businesses consolidate pharmaceuticals and medical products from thousands of manufacturers into site-specific deliveries to retail pharmacies, hospitals, physician's offices, surgery centers and alternate care facilities.

"The company has recently taken steps to increase the percentage of cash flow into dividends and share repurchases to enhance shareholder value.

"The blue chip stocks that we recommend are chosen for the exemplary long-term dividend growth, a P/E ratio of 15 or less, a payout ratio of 50% or less, debt of 50% or less, and technical characteristics on the daily and weekly charts that suggests the potential for imminent capital appreciation.

"While the current dividend yield on Cardinal Health is comparatively low at around 1.0%, the upside potential for capital appreciation is quite large."

Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

This post is part of a series in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked financial experts to name their top stock pick if McCain or if Obama wins the election.

Which stocks would benefit from a victory by either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama? To help investors sort through the sectors and stocks best positioned to benefit in a post-election environment, we posed this question to some of the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

Importantly, this is not a partisan report; each participating advisor has provided a favorite stock for both candidates, focused not on political preferences but unbiased stock analysis. Below we feature those stocks and ETFs that the advisors believe will be the winners depending on which candidate prevails.

McCain Stocks:

Roger Conrad - Comcast (NYSE: CCW)
Gregg Early - Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT)
Elliott Gue - Paladin Resources (Toronto: PDN)
Doug Fabian - Market Vectors Nuclear Energy (NYSE: NLR)
Vivian Lewis - Barclays (NYSE: BCS)
Bill Martin - CGG Veritas (NYSE: CGV)'
Yiannis Mostrous - Lonking Holdings (OTC: CIMHF)
Carla Pasternak - Eaton Vance Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: EVT)
Nate Pile - SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD)
John Reese - General Dynamics (NYSE: GD)
Nathan Slaughter - USEC (NYSE: USU)
Paul Tracy - Shaw Group (NYSE: SGR)
Kelley Wright - CenturyTel (NYSE: CTL)
Tom Vass - Molex (NASDAQ: MOLX)
Martin Hutchinson - Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG)

Obama Stocks:

Roger Conrad - SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR)
Gregg Early - AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV)
Elliott Gue - SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR)
Doug Fabian - Industrial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLI)
Vivian Lewis - Cosan (NYSE: CZZ)
Bill Martin - Geron (NASDAQ: GERN)
Yiannis Mostrous - Dr. Reddy's (NYSE: RDY)
Carla Pasternak - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (NYSE: KMP)
Nate Pile - Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)
John Reese - American Eagle (NYSE: AEO)
Nathan Slaughter - Fluor (NYSE: FLR)
Paul Tracy - Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy (NYSE: GEX)
Kelley Wright - Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH)
Tom Vass - Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR)
Martin Hutchinson - Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR)

For the first time Monday I heard John McCain comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter. I had heard this before in other arenas, but not from McCain. I guess that despite these two presidential candidates pledging to the American people to bring change and resist politics as usual, they are both, as usual as one could get.

Obama is being shaped by the pressures of running for office and to believe otherwise is delusional. I suppose one has to have hope but the effects of the campaign are becoming clear. Obama has been painting McCain as an extension of Bush, which is nonsense, and now in a typical tit-for-tat response, McCain is filling the air with Carter references.

Both McCain and Obama are wrong in their assessments of their opponents and they are becoming commoners to resort to the bottom of the barrel campaign techniques used in every campaign for most of our nation's proud history. Obama gave up the high ground too easily and McCain has decided he can sling mud with the best of them.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: WuXi Pharma, ExxonMobil and LifePoint Hospitals were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Jefferies upgraded shares of WuXi Pharma (NYSE: WX) to Buy from Hold as they believe the risk/reward is much improved following the recent weakness. They think the company's 2008 guidance is achievable.
  
• Credit Suisse raised ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) to Outperform from Neutral as they believe the rise in crude oil means analyst estimates are too low.
  
• Goldman sees upside to hospital stocks given low valuations and expectations. The firm upgraded LifePoint Hospitals (NASDAQ: LPNT) to Buy from Neutral and named it a top pick along with previous top pick Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH).

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Goldman added NDS Group (NASDAQ: NNDS) to their Conviction Buy List and upgraded shares to Buy from Neutral.
  
• Morgan Stanley raised Boeing (NYSE: BA) to Overweight from Equal Weight.
  
• JP Morgan added Sherwin-Williams (NYSE: SHW) to the Focus List.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: DiamondRock Hospitality, Pzena Investment and Vodafone were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• DiamondRock Hospitality (NYSE: DRH) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Baird, citing the newly-announced 4.8M repurchase plan, strong balance sheet and valuation.
  
• Keefe Bruyette upgraded shares of Pzena Investment (NYSE: PZN) to Market Perform from Underperform after the company announced February ending AUM.
  
• Goldman added Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) to its Conviction Buy List following the recent weakness as they expect the company to benefit from growth in wireless data.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• UBS raised Weyerhaeuser (NYSE: WY) to Buy from Neutral.
  
• Credit Suisse upgraded MedCath (NASDAQ: MDTH) and Lululemon (NASDAQ: LULU) to Outperform from Neutral.
  
• Goldman added Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) to its Conviction Buy List.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Washington Post, Harvest Natural, Memc Electronic Materials and Boston Private Financial were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Deutsche Bank upgraded shares of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO to Buy from Hold to reflect the company's exposure to the counter-cyclical education division.
• Jefferies upgraded shares of Harvest Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: HNR) to Buy from Hold and raised their target to $17 from $11 after the company received final approval in the conversion to a mixed company. They note that conversion clears the way for renewed investment.
• Friedman Billings added Memc Electronic Materials Inc (NYSE: WFR) to its Top Picks List following its Q3 report and guidance as "solar wafer contracts," not including spot poly, are expected to increase from 15% of the total to 35%-40% in CY08 and greater than 50% in CY09.
• William Blair raised its rating on Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: BPFH) to Outperform from Market Perform after the better-than-expected Q3 results.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Goldman added Dell Inc (NASDAQ: DELL) to its Conviction Buy List.
• NTT DoCoMo Inc (NYSE: DCM) was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Citigroup and to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
• Credit Suisse upgraded Cardinal Health Incorporated (NYSE: CAH) to Outperform from Neutral.
• Merrill upgraded Coca-Cola Femsa SA (NYSE: KOF) and Northeast Utilities (NYSE: NU) to Buy from Neutral.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: CyberSource, Century Casinos, Spectrum Pharm and Winnebago were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• JMP Securities upgraded shares of CyberSource (NASDAQ: CYBS) to Market Outperform from Market Perform citing valuation, positive management comments regarding BidPay, and incrementally positive industry checks on its fraud product.
  
• Brean Murray upgraded shares of Century Casinos (NASDAQ: CNTY) to Buy from Hold based on continued progress at recently opened properties, reduced Street expectations, and potential catalysts.
  
• Brean Murray also upgraded Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SPPI) to Buy from Hold. The firm is highly confident that Spectrum's ozarelix will demonstrate similar efficacy and safety in the current U.S. Phase IIb trial and expects statistical significant. The firm expects Ph III initiations by year-end 2007 and Ph IIb data to be released on 2Q08.
  
• Winnebago Industries (NYSE: WGO) was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital. The firm expects Winnebago to begin to post better earnings from more favorable mix and pricing in the 2008 model year.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Merrill Lynch upgraded Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) to Buy from Neutral.
  
• Goldman upgraded shares of US Airways (NYSE: LCC) to Buy from Neutral.
  
• Avocent Corporation (NASDAQ: AVCT) was upgraded to Accumulate from Source the Funds at Think Equities.
  
• Collins Stewart raised Cyberonics (NASDAQ: CYBX) to Buy from Market Perform.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Statoil (STO), BG Group (BRG), Repsol (REP), Flow International (FLOW) and the refining sector were today's more noteworthy downgrades:

• Citigroup cut Statoil (NYSE: STO), BG Group (NYSE: BRG) and Repsol SA (NYSE: REP) to Sell from Hold due to valuation and the difficult operating environment.

• Matrix USA downgraded Flow International (NASDAQ: FLOW) to Strong Sell from Hold, citing weak demand from Asian customers that led to slowing sales growth.

• Bernstein downgraded the refining sector to Underperform and refiners Sunoco (NYSE: SUN) and Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) to Underperform from Market Perform...

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Canadian Pacific (NYSE: CP) was cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse; RBC Capital downgraded CP shares to Sector Perform from Outperform.

• Goldman downgraded Taiwan Semi (NYSE: TSM) to Neutral from Buy.

• Buckingham lowered Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) to Accumulate from Buy.

• Credit Suisse downgraded Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) to Neutral from Outperform.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

MOST NOTEWORTHY: GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE: GSK), Express Scripts, Inc (ESRX), SanDisk Corp (SNDK), Halliburton Co (HAL) and Texas Instruments (TXN) were some of today's noteworthy upgrades.

• Deutsche Bank upgraded GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE: GSK) to Buy from Hold.

• Express Scripts Inc (NASDAQ: ESRX) was upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy with a $113 target at First Albany, following the stronger-than-expected first quarter results.

• SanDisk Corp (NASDAQ: SNDK) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Citigroup.

• Halliburton Co (NASDAQ: HAL) was added to AG Edwards Focus Portfolio. The firm believes Halliburton trades at a great discount to its largest peer, Schlumberger Ltd (SLB), despite an improved earnings outlook and progress on several issues.

• Texas Instruments (NASDAQ: TXN) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Gabelli to reflect strong first quarter results and valuation. Piper Jaffray upgraded shares of Texas Instruments to Outperform from Market Perform...
  

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded shares of BancFirst Corp (NASDAQ: BANF) to Market Perform from Underperform following its first quarter report.

• Raymond James raised Cardinal Health, Inc (NYSE: CAH) to Outperform from Market Perform.

• Matrix USA raised H.B. Fuller Co (NYSE: FUL) to Hold from Sell based on the company's sales growth.

• Baird raised Snap-on Inc (NYSE: SNA) rating to Outperform from Neutral with a $55 target.

• Bear Stearns upgraded shares of Cummins Inc (NYSE: CMI) to Peer Perform from Underperform.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

MOST NOTEWORTHY: CKE Restaurants (CKR), Cardinal Health (CAH), eBay (EBAY) and CA Inc (CA) topped today's noteworthy initiation list today:

• Nollenberger believes the Hardee's franchise is entering a period of accelerated growth and initiated shares of CKE Restaurants (NYSE: CKR) with a Buy rating and $27 target.

• Goldman views Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) as a as a high quality, focused franchise with strong fundamental outlook driven by margin expansion and improvements in non-drug wholesale businesses and restructuring efforts, reinstating its Buy rating on the company.

• American Technology initiated eBAY Inc (NASDAQ: EBAY) with a Buy rating and $43 target, believing the company is the top play on growth of U.S. e-commerce and they expect upside to numbers tonight.

• Needham believes CA Inc (NYSE: CA) Inc remains in transition as it continues to work on the repackaging of its vast product array into five solution sets and started the company with a Hold rating.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• Lazard initiated F5 Networks Inc (NASDAQ: FFIV) with a Buy rating and $100 target.

• Citigroup started Clearwire Corp (NASDAQ: CLWR) with a Hold rating and $23 target.

• Morgan Stanley assumed coverage of Vornado RealtyTrust (NYSE: VNO) with an Equal Weight rating.

• SourceFire Inc (NASDAQ: FIRE) was initiated with a Hold rating and $12 target.

• The Wet Seal (NASDAQ: WTSLA) was initiated with an Outperform rating at Cowen.

• Roth Capital initiated shares of Vivus Inc (NASDAQ: VVUS) with a Buy rating and $15 target.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

MOST NOTEWORTHY: HealthSouth Corp (HLS) and the healthcare distributors were today's more notable initiations:

• Oppenheimer started HealthSouth Corp (NYSE: HLS) with a Sell rating and $18 target; the firm's research on Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities indicates that coverage determinations at the local and regional levels could cause a drop in 2007-2009 EBITDA. The firm recommends avoiding HLS equity but sees upside to the company's debt.

• CIBC initiated the healthcare distributors sector with an Overweight rating. In addition, the firm started Cardinal Health, Inc (NYSE: CAH) and McKesson Corp (NYSE: MCK) with Sector Outperformer ratings and initiated AmerisourceBergen Corp (NYSE: ABC) with a Sector Performer rating. The broker transferred coverage of Omnicare, Inc (NYSE: OCR) with a Sector Outperformer rating.

OTHER INITIATIONS:

• First Albany initiated Gymboree Corp (NASDAQ: GYMB) with a Buy rating and Children's Place Retail Stores, Inc (NASDAQ: PLCE) with a Neutral rating.

• Nollenberger started Dover Downs Gaming & Entertainment, Inc (NYSE: DDE) with a Neutral rating citing valuation.

• Roth Capital initiated shares of Vignette Corp (NASDAQ: VIGN) with a Hold rating and $21 target.

• JP Morgan started coverage of Oil States International, Inc (NYSE: OIS) with a Neutral rating, citing slow growth in the company's North American business.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

I'm fascinated with the list of 2006's 100 top prime contractors released by the Department of Defense. Earlier, I blogged about the top 10, none of which took me by surprise. As I browsed the rest of the list, though, I found a number of companies I hadn't considered as defense contractors. I noted particularly how dependent our military is on petroleum to carry out its mission.

• #26 FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX) -- $1.3 billion
• #29 BP PLC (NYSE:BP) -- $1.2 billion
• #30 Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) -- $1.1 billion
• #31 N.V. Koninklijke Nederlandsche (Shell) -- $1.1 million
• #34 Kuwait Petroleum -- $1 billion
• #39 Korea Agriculture Cooperative -- $760 million
• #49 Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- $640 million
• #50 Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) -- $636 million
• #52 Cardinal Health Inc. (NYSE:CAH) -- $635 million
• #58 Government of Canada (EH) -- $542 million
• #60 Johns Hopkins University -- $525 million
• #61 Battelle Memorial Institute -- $519 million
• #66 Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. -- $494 million
• #70 The Bahrain Petroleum Company -- $478 million
• #80 Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE:PG) -- $362 million (including $13 million to Millstone Coffee and $5.6 million to Sunny Delight)
• #91 Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE:TSN) -- $335 million
• #98 Pepsico Inc. (NYSE:PEP) -- $287 million
• #99 Unicor/Federal Prisons Industries Inc. (DJNT) -- $283 million

I highly recommend checking out the full list. Consider how changes in our war status might effect the prices of your stocks.

Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE:CAH) opened at $71.00. So far the stock has hit a low of $71.00 and a high of $73.34. As of 10:25 this morning, CAH was trading at 72.87, up 2.84 (4.06%).

After hitting a one year high of $75.74 on March 20, 2006, the stock has seen a couple of sharp jumps over the last few months. The stock is climbing again today after the company announced that it is selling its drug services unit to Blackstone Group for over $3 billion cash. The technicals for the stock have been slightly deteriorating and S&P gives CAH a cautious 3 STAR hold rating.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a June bull-put credit spread below the $60 range.

Vic Schiller is an analyst on the move at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE NOTE: Mr. Schiller owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Under Armor Inc (NYSE: UA) and Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE: CAH) are today's most notable upgrades:

• Credit Suisse upgraded Under Armor Inc (NYSE: UA) to Outperform from Neutral with a $65 target and believes that the company is emerging as one of the premier global athletic brands.

• JMP Securities upgraded shares of Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE: CAH) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect their expectation for accelerated earnings growth over the next three years.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Friedman, Billings upgraded shares of Urban Outfitters Inc (NASDAQ: URBN) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect positive momentum in URBN's core division, inventory control and easy upcoming comps.

• Stanford upgraded shares of Vonage Holdings (NYSE: VG) to Hold from Sell on valuation.

• Goldman Sachs upgraded the US Homebuilding Sector to Neutral from Sell saying the worst may be behind the group, but fundamentals remain troubling. The analyst said the next meaningful data will be from the Spring selling season, 6-8 weeks away.
• Goldman upgraded D.R. Horton Inc (NYSE: DHI), MDC Holdings Inc (NYSE: MDC) & Toll Brothers Inc (NYSE: TOL) to Buy from Neutral due to lower-risk at this point in the cycle. The Ryland Group Inc (NYSE: RYL) was upgraded to Neutral from Sell.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Kimberly Clark (KMB) and Amazon.com (AMZN) topped today's most notable upgrades:

• Prudential upgraded Kimberly Clark (NYSE: KMB) to Overweight from Underweight with an $80 target, reflecting lower commodity prices.
  
• Stifel upgraded Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) to Buy from Hold with a $44 target, noting that Amazon is entering an operating leverage cycle and usually performs well in such environments.

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Cowen considered bebe Stores's (NASDAQ: BEBE) risk/reward to be favorable at these levels, upgrading shares to Overweight from Neutral.
  
• Prudential upgraded shares of Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) to Overweight from Neutral.
  
• Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).