4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Kraft

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 130,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, packaged-food giant Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Kraft's business, and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Kraft facts 

Headquarters (founded)	Northfield, Ill. (2000)
Market Cap	$33.82 billion
Industry	Packaged Foods and Meats
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$42.20 billion
Management	CEO Irene Rosenfeld CFO Timothy McLevish
Brands	Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Oscar Mayer, Maxwell House, Nabisco, Oreo
Return on Equity (average, last three years)	8.6%
Dividend Yield	5.1%
Competitors	General Mills (NYSE: GIS  ) Unilever (NYSE: UL  )
CAPS members bullish on KFT also bullish on	Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ  ) Altria (NYSE: MO  )
CAPS members bearish on KFT also bearish on	Dell (Nasdaq: DELL  ) Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM  )

Sources: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and Motley Fool CAPS.

Over on CAPS, some 94% of the 2,008 members who have rated Kraft believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include PinochleHead and TSIF.

In late March, PinochleHead tapped Kraft as a refreshingly stable source of income: "People have to eat. Someone's got to feed them. Kraft has a proven track record of doing that profitably. Increased their dividend in 2008. Just confirmed that dividend for the current quarter."

In a pitch from February, TSIF cites the stock's cheapish price (which is even lower today) as good reason to dig in:

Part of my bottom fishing expedition on quality companies that are too large to "right size" on the fly, but profitable enough to weather the current down turn and come out stronger on the backend. While nothing is appearing to be recession proof, the inputs to the business (gas, oil, commodities) are in a deflationary mode. I seriously doubt that Kraft will be passing much of the price drops to the inputs on to the hungry consumers who need to eat. Kraft has a broad portfolio of products that are "ready to eat" which works well in this multi-job family environment and that also works well in a recession. Current price makes the dividend appealing and makes this a buy and hold opportunity at reasonable P/E's.

What do you think about Kraft, or any other stock for that matter? Make your voice heard on Motley Fool CAPS today. More than 130,000 investors are waiting to hear what you have to say. CAPS is 100% free, so simply click here to get started.