"The fact that retail is out of favor is a theory that has been trumpeted across the Street for the last six months, and therefore has already been worked into the stock price, " says Bob Napoli, brokerage analyst at ABN Amro, pointing out that Merrill's shares are the most attractive relative to its historicaltradingrange.
Weiss' investment strategy is to select blue-chip stocks with a long history of paying dividends and trading at the high end of their historicalrange of yields.