Top Takes From RealMoney

The RealMoney contributors are in the business of trading and investing all day on the basis of ongoing news flow. Below, we offer the top five ideas that RealMoney contributors posted today and how they played those ideas.

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1. Sold Walgreen After a Nice Six-Week Run

By Brian Gilmartin
12:11 P.M. EDT

We sold the majority of our Walgreen(WAG Quote) today after a nice six- to eight-week run off the low $20s. Walgreen will report April '09 sales next week and the stock is struggling here around its 200-day moving average and the downward sloping trend line off the October '07 high.

After putting in a double bottom in the low $20s in both October '08 and March '09, we bought Walgreen for a bunch of accounts and the trade worked well, for between a 15% to 25% gain in the last six to eight weeks. We remain long one low cost basis position from June 1997 at $12.66 per share.

We'd love to try and repurchase Walgreen on a retrace to the $25 to $26 area. The new CEO is doing the right things though; Greg Wasson has boosted margins, managed expenses better and Walgreen reported its best quarter ever of cash-flow from operations in late March '09.

Long Walgreen.

2. Whirlpool Up Big; Still Cautious

By Eric Jackson
11:31 AM EDT

Earlier this morning, I expressed surprise that Whirlpool(WHR Quote) was trading down in premarket after it released quarterly numbers. With cost controls, the company posted a slight profit instead of a loss as the market expected. I expected a big rally, given how that kind of news has been received lately by the market.