nue

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded American Capital (NASDAQ: AGNC) to Outperform from Market Perform on expectations the company's book value and earnings are trending higher. The firm raised its target price to $22.
• Jefferies upgraded Spartan Stores (NASDAQ: SPTN) to Buy from Hold as it believes the company's EPS and sales momentum will return with the Michigan economy likely bottoming out. Despite upgrading, the firm lowered its target price to $18 from $24.
• Morgan Stanley upgraded U.S. Steel (X) to Overweight from Equal Weight due to its favorable product mix and leverage to improving operating rates.
• CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman.
• Mueller Water (NYSE: MWA) was raised to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer.
• Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform at JMP Securities.

Nucor (NYSE: NUE - option chain) shares are rising today after iron-ore miner Rio Tinto (NYSE: RTP) agreed to cut its iron ore prices for Japan's Nippon Steel Corp by more than 30%. The steelmakers have already been driven lower as demand for their product has slowed, but now they are less likely to be charged boom-time prices for their raw materials on top of that. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on NUE.

NUE opened this morning at $39.44. So far today the stock has hit a low of $39.14 and a high of $41.41. As of 11:35, NUE is trading at $41.25 up 1.16 (2.9%). The chart for NUE looks bearish and S&P gives NUE a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

The whole world watches China when it comes to the natural resource play. Iron ore and steel companies have watched their share prices swing wildly based on news coming out of the Middle Kingdom in terms of what Chinese mills will be buying and how much they are willing to pay (particularly for the annual iron ore negotiations). Of late, the steel and iron sector has bounced nicely based on rising Chinese demand. Now noises coming out of China's government imply the steel bounce might have been inflated demand numbers. (via FT Alphaville).

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says this market is short-term overbought -- any other reasons to buy can wait.

The playbook says, "Buy weak-dollar plays." But does that mean only weak-dollar commodity plays, as in flee-out-of-dollar-into-oil plays? Or weak-dollar plays like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) (Cramer's Take) and General Mills (NYSE: GIS) (Cramer's Take)? Or weak-dollar plays like gold? Or tech plays because Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) (Cramer's Take) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) (Cramer's Take) are hugely international?

Or do you bother doing anything at all up here because we are plus-seven on the oscillator and every time we have gotten this overbought in this market, we have come crashing down?

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if the pricing shows a disconnect with long-term truths, you can buy here.

Nothing to say. Not much going on. Can't get any CEOs to comment. Too close to the end of the quarter. People are dismissive of Nucor (NYSE: NUE) (Cramer's Take), and happy with Darden (NYSE: DRI) (Cramer's Take). Meanwhile, Tim Geithner's been silent, and silence is golden. Now if only he would ask one simple question: What are we guaranteeing with AIG (NYSE: AIG) (Cramer's Take)? It's a sideshow but an important one down the road, not now.

All of these things are of a piece. We are in one of those golden moments when not much is happening, and when we get information, we declare it half-full. I found myself thinking that Nucor's decline has to be some sort of a bottom because utilization rates don't get much lower than this. I found myself thinking that the infrastructure plan will kick in because everyone has now decided it will and that's all that matters.

Back in 2001, Jim Collins had a monster of a business bestseller with his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap. . . and Others Don't. In it, Collins explored companies that have become hugely successful and found that success generally comes as a result of focusing resources on things that you're good at instead of mindlessly diversifying.

Arkansas Business writer Jeff Hankins read the book again to see how the companies profiled have weathered the downturn. The companies profiled were Abbot Laboratories (NYSE: ABT), Kroger (NYSE: KR), Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB), Walgreens (NYSE: WAG), Altria (NYSE: MO), Nucor (NYSE: NUE), Pitney Bowes (NYSE: PBI), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and tragically, Fannie Mae and Circuit City. Gilette was eliminated from contention because of a merger.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the importance of this nation cannot be overstated.

How long before we start feeling the positive effect of a market that is up 13% and is the biggest user of commodities? How long do we think oil can stay down (or copper or steel) when the stock market of China, the growth engine, is no longer sputtering and has ample room to run?

As people sell down BP (NYSE: BP) (Cramer's Take) and Conoco (NYSE: COP) (Cramer's Take), they simply must believe that the Chinese stimulus plan is already a failure. Anyone on the Mattel (NYSE: MAT) (Cramer's Take) conference call -- talk about a company with Chinese insight -- certainly thinks so. The description of China from reports like Mattel is one of Cormac McCarthy's The Road-like devastation.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says after seeing what was passed, forget the infra plays.

Is President Obama listening to all of those good businesspeople around him? Or is it all being done for show? Did they really get behind that stimulus package that couldn't stimulate a fraction of the jobs that have already been lost this month?

I couldn't help but feel that way after speaking to Dan Dimicco from Nucor (NYSE: NUE) (Cramer's Take) last night. Nucor's had about a 50% drop in production of steel -- the kind of steel that would be used in any real infrastructure package -- and he was simply aghast that anyone could check off on anything that small, that the amount of steel that would be used in that package was minuscule and wouldn't mean a thing.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says they're too important to just let them go.

You never want to buck the financials. I have said over and over again that the group is too important to make let go. Can we really envision a world without Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) common stock? Can we envision a world where PNC (NYSE: PNC) (Cramer's Take) and Bank of New York (NYSE: BK) (Cramer's Take) and State Street (NYSE: STT) (Cramer's Take) are no more? A world where Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take) and JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) don't make it?

It's funny when you put it that way, because we know that if those stocks weren't in the S&P 500, if we just took them out, we would be feeling like we should be buying, buying, and buying judging from the very nice pullbacks we have had to above the lows of October and November now that we are oversold.

Tons of charts, from Forest Labs (NYSE: FRX) (Cramer's Take) to AT&T (NYSE: T) (Cramer's Take), from Disney (NYSE: DIS) (Cramer's Take) to Eaton (NYSE: ETN) (Cramer's Take), all sorts of charts from all sorts of industries, charts like Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) (Cramer's Take) and BP (NYSE: BP) (Cramer's Take) and Nucor (NYSE: NUE) (Cramer's Take), if they hold here, will embolden people to come in. As will IBM (NYSE: IBM) (Cramer's Take) on Wednesday.

Almost two years ago I posted a downbeat opinion about a merger that went through and one that did not. However the latter is being discussed again, unbelievable! SEE: GM/Chrysler or Sirius/XM: Two losers don't equal a winner.

In the story I rant about all the things that would improve General Motors (NYSE: GM) and where it is lacking -- noting that being bigger and having more models, less focus and more debt, are not among them. Eventually Cerberus made the big bet and lost. You can be sure they would like to play that hand over again.

Now all three U.S. car companies are in trouble with billions of dollars of losses and huge debt overhangs. All three begged for, and received some amount of federal relief and will need more to sustain themselves though 2009 as it proves to be every bit as tough as 2008 was. Despite everything, GM and Chrysler have been pondering a merger again. BAD IDEA! GM does not need the distraction, they need more focus -- nothing but intense focus!

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says stocks are likely to decline, but don't expect them to fall hard and fast.

So, five days ago we are talking about breaking back to above Dow 10,000 with ease. Now is there anyone out there who doesn't think that we will soon be retesting the mid-7000s? SPX 750, here we come?

What the heck happened in a week? Where did all of that optimism go? We haven't had that many preannouncements yet. We haven't had all of the retail failures we expected, and we didn't even get a spike up in the bad commodities -- like gasoline -- that had any last to it.

Of course, the most likely scenario about what happened is that we figured with all of the crises solved, the major banks no longer an issue, we would then be propelled higher. We also didn't have the reckless short-selling that had so characterized this market.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the economics are still dire, but stocks aren't even flinching on huge warnings.

Preannouncement after preannouncement after preannouncement. Yawn after yawn after yawn.

I've never seen anything like it. Worst ever. But, did anyone really think Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR) (Cramer's Take), cut in half here, would make the quarter? How about Nucor (NYSE: NUE) (Cramer's Take)? Stanley Works (NYSE: SWK) (Cramer's Take)? ITT (NYSE: ITT) (Cramer's Take)? Eaton (NYSE: ETN) (Cramer's Take)? Pentair (NYSE: PNR) (Cramer's Take)? I figured they would all miss. I bet the ones that preannounced last night hardly go down. Why should they? ITT's up nicely. Eaton's unchanged. Not even glancing blows. Nucor's up 10! Ten from a preannouncement.

Most glaring: the 10% miss by Joy Global (NASDAQ: JOYG) (Cramer's Take) with the almost 15% rally! Now that's gigantic.

That's why people feel better about this tape. In the end of that big run up, stocks failed to react to even the biggest beats. Now they fail to react to the biggest misses.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says it's too crazy for a lot of people, and they're cashing out of this casino.

Last night, during a talk at the 92nd Street Y in New York, I fielded questions from an overwhelming group of eager and confused investors, almost all of whom are bewildered, unhappy and fed up. They don't trust stocks and they think that the day-to-day nonsense that passes as a stock market is pure manipulation, that all of the wrong people are getting money from the government and that they wish somehow they could just get back to even so they can get out of this game.

I think they are right.

To me, when I see Occidental (NYSE: OXY) (Cramer's Take) up 5 on a nothing day, when I see Chevron (NYSE: CVX) (Cramer's Take) and Exxon (NYSE: XOM) (Cramer's Take) once again up huge amounts, when I see the market double in the last 40 minutes off obvious manipulation by products that serve only to manipulate, I totally agree with them. When I see the raids on the financials, or the insurers, when I see the shorts pressing JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) (Cramer's Take) down through aggressive shorting without upticks and ETFs, what am I supposed to think? When I see the consumer product stocks get slaughtered on news that isn't new -- Procter (NYSE: PG) (Cramer's Take) says business is tough? Well, hello, they have been saying it all along -- or steel stocks rally big on orders that aren't even here, as in Nucor (NYSE: NUE) (Cramer's Take), I say, "Forget it, the mechanism's not working."

Nucor (NYSE: NUE), an operator steel mills and marketer of steel products, closed at $32.27 Tuesday. NUE December option implied volatility of 91 is above its 26-week average of 73 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

AK Steel (NYSE: AKS), a producer of steel products, closed at $6.86 Tuesday. AKS December 7.5 straddle is priced at $2.40, January 7.5 straddle is priced at $3.50. AKS January option implied volatility of 158 is above its 26-week average of 102 according to Track Data, indicating larger price movement.

Mechel Steel (NYSE: MTL) closed at $4.59 Tuesday. MTL is a Russian mining, steel and power company. MTL December 5 straddle closed at $2.25, January 5 straddle closed at $3.15. MTL April option implied volatility of 185 is above its 26-week average of 117 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price fluctuations.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says this market is whipping around so fast that just keeping up is a challenge.

Editor's note: Jim Cramer will present his 2009 stock outlook for the first time at TheStreet.com Investment Conference on Saturday, Oct. 25. Limited seating; act now.

How hard is it? Do you know I wrote a piece at 2:45 yesterday afternoon, all set to talk about how the resilience of the market just spooks me given we didn't know Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take) and we had the oils up with the oil futures? We were shrugging off Latin America, which was basically crushed off of Argentina's confiscation. There was nothing going right and yet the futures wouldn't quit.

I then met with my staff at CNBC and chatted with David Faber, a good friend of mine, about what's going on behind the scenes with the credit market.

I put the market on hold and focused on him and on my questions for Nucor (NYSE: NUE) (Cramer's Take). And in 30 minutes the piece was worthless.