People watch stocks for different reasons -- they're waiting for a dip in price, watching for a specific catalyst, gathering all the news and information that might affect stocks they already own, or considering a sell. Regardless of their motivation, we can better understand market sentiment by seeing who's watching what. With the Fool's free My Watchlist service, we have tens of thousands of people telling us the businesses that have, for whatever reason, piqued their interest.

With this data we have come up with a new metric, watch interest, to inform investors what stocks their peers keep tabs on in each industry. In the case of the household products industry, watch interest is the percentage of people keeping an eye on household products stocks in general who are specifically watching each company. By looking at what stocks people are most interested in an industry, you can get ahead of the curve by finding hot stocks that you might have otherwise overlooked.

The most-watched household products stock is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) is above the rest in terms of watch interest and for good reason. As CAPS player sanfosr1 wrote last week:

A good defensive stock against a down economy. Strong company. This is a company that provides goods that everyone needs, even when the economy is down...I'm still gonna brush my teeth. It also continues to pay good dividends. Income Stock.

Here are the rest of the 15 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS rating to show the sentiment of our investing community.

 

Company

Market Cap (in millions)

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Watch Interest

1

Procter & Gamble

$166,305

*****

33.3%

2

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB)

$24,724

*****

14.8%

3

Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL)

$40,175

*****

7.5%

4

Clorox (NYSE: CLX)

$8,643

****

5.0%

5

SodaStream International (Nasdaq: SODA)

$1,357

**

3.9%

6

Newell Rubbermaid (NYSE: NWL)

$3,806

****

2.7%

7

Leggett & Platt (NYSE: LEG)

$2,733

***

2.6%

8

Whirlpool (NYSE: WHR)

$4,938

***

2.4%

9

Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN)

$5,850

**

2.2%

10

Fortune Brands (NYSE: FO)

$8,185

*****

2.2%

11

Tempur Pedic International (NYSE: TPX)

$4,283

***

1.9%

12

Church & Dwight (NYSE: CHD)

$5,365

****

1.7%

13

iRobot (Nasdaq: IRBT)

$763

***

1.5%

14

PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM)

$2,121

*

1.5%

15

Deer Consumer Products (Nasdaq: DEER)

$188

*

1.2%

Sources: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts like Procter & Gamble or are watching an up-and-comer like SodaStream International, it pays to watch. We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service. Click here to start now.