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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Insider Buying

By Tim Melvin
12:13 p.m. EDT

A senior vice president bought 150,000 shares of Seagate Technology(STX Quote) this week. I suggested this stock earlier this year and it has moved sharply off the lows.

With the positive insider activity, I think I will continue to hold the stock for the long term. It has almost tripled off the lows, but is still about a third off its two-year highs. Data storage should be a great business when the economy recovers and I think there will be more mergers in this space.

Long Seagate.

Use Any Pullback to Pick Fertilizer Stocks

By Sham Gad
9:19 a.m. EDT The fertilizer space has run up very quickly over the past two weeks. While the long-term fundamentals are very strong, short-term volatility could mean a chance to nibble at good prices. Citigroup(C Quote) recently upped its ratings on the group, including Potash(POT Quote), Agrium(AGU Quote), Mosaic(MOS Quote), citing tighter grain supplies. Of greater significance is that the companies, namely Potash, have responded very quickly to cutting capacity, which has stabilized potash prices.

However, farmers cannot be without fertilizer for long and as they work through inventories, prices could jump nicely leading to a nice earnings surprise in 2010. We could easily see these companies test their 2008 highs in 2010, in which case the upside is over 100% from here in a year or two.

Long Potash.